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THE 
WOMAN ON THE FARM 


The Century Rural Lite Books 
C. J. Gatpin, Editor 








RURAL SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
CuHaArRLEs JosiAH GALPIN 


THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 
Mary Mrerx ATKESON 


LAND: ITS SOCIAL ECONOMY 
Cuartes Lesure STEwART 


THE FARMER’S STANDARD OF 
LIVING 
HE. L. Kirxpatrick 


RURAL MUNICIPALITIES 
Turopore B. Manny 


RURAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
Cart C. Taytorn 


THE FARMER’S TOWN 
J. H. Kors 


THE SUBURBAN TREND 
H. Pavut Doveuass 


THE FARMER’S CHURCH 
Warren H. Witson 
















THE 
WOMAN ON THE FARM 


BY 


MARY MEEK ‘ATKESON 





THE CENTURY CoO. 
New York & London 







hye ee str i 7) 


Copyright, 1924, by 
THE CENTURY Co. 

















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To THE WOMAN ON THE FARM IN AMERICA 


THis Book 1s DEDICATED 





FOREWORD 


Introducing the woman on the farm—her work, her 
problems, and her point of view on life—is the purpose 
of the present volume. In its preparation the farm 
woman herself has given much assistance to the writer. 
Nearly a thousand special correspondents, representing 
every State in the Union, have taken time in their busy 
lives to write their views upon one or more of the sub- 
jects here discussed. The writer has met and talked 
with many hundreds of farm women at field day and 
organization meetings in many parts of the country. 
And through the courtesy of Dr. C. J. Galpin of the 
Department of Agriculture, she has had the privilege of 
reading the hundreds of letters from farm women, re- 
eeived in 1920 by Farm and Home and the seven 
thousand letters from farm women received in 1922 in 
a contest by The Farmer’s Wife. Other smaller groups 
of letters were available in Department of Agriculture 
publications. 

It is true that on every subject the farm women of 
America hold many diverse views. Each makes a path 
for herself in her thinking. But the writer has tried 
in the midst of their differences to present those things 
which seem to her most typical and most American. 
Nothing is mentioned in these pages which has not 
actually been worked out in some farm community in 

Vii 


Vill FOREWORD 
America, though of course no one community has done 
or could do them all. But the writer has listed the 
successful practices in the hope that a knowledge of 
them will be helpful to other farm neighborhoods and 
to other leaders of community life. 

And in addition the writer has tried to give on every 
subject the ‘‘farthest look’’ of the woman on the farm— 
her ideas of what may be worked out in the future in 
our American country life. The reader may think her 
too optimistic in some instances. But the woman on 
the farm is optimistic; she is working at a big task 
which she has no thought of quitting, and she needs 
the inspiration of a bright outlook toward the future. 
That some of her hopes may not be realized is very 
probable, but whatever happens she will still be working 
and making eager plans for what is to come next. 

The writer wishes especially to thank Dr. C. J. Galpin, 
editor of the Century Rural Life Series, for assistance 
in planning this book, and her many farm women ac- 
quaintances, whose whole-souled appreciation of her 
efforts to present their point of view has greatly en- 
couraged her in her work. Acknowledgment is also 
made of the kind permission of the editors of Good 
Housekeeping, McCall’s Magazine, The Pictorial Review, 
The Country Gentleman, and The Farmer’s Wife to use 
in this book articles by the writer which have appeared 
in those publications. 


Lawnvale Farm, Mary Mrrx ATKESON. 
Buffalo, West Virginia, 
June 10, 1924. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 
I Tue American Farm Woman . 
II Tse Farm Home . 
lii Tue Farmuovuse 
IV Tue Grounps AND GARDENS . 
V ‘Tue Home BusINEss . 
VI Tue Woman Hersevr 
VIL Tue Boy anp THE GIRL 
VIIT Tue ScHoou 
IX THE CHURCH 
X Booxs anp LIBRARIES . 
XI Tue ComMMunIty 
XII Socran Lire 
XIII =Pourtics anp Nationan ORGANIZATION 
XIV Tue Trurs asout Country Lira 


APPENDIX 


ix 


» Lae 
. 140 
. 174 
. 202 
. 220 
. 237 
. 263 
. 286 
PAE, 
. 321 





THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 





THE WOMAN ON THE 
FARM 


CHAPTER I 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 


there has been but little mention of one feminine 
type—and that the one which is most typically 
American of them all—the American farm woman. As 
no other woman in the nation, she is the product of our 
soil and our institutions and our ideals and aspirations. 
She is as typical as Lincoln is of the true American 
spirit. And if we seek a symbol of all that is most truly 
American in womanhood, we can do no better than to 
present this modern woman on the farm, with her strong 
shoulders and her happy uplifted face and her spirit 
of service to the nation of to-morrow. Mentally, spirit- 
ually, and physically she would be an enduring inspi- 
ration to all the women of the world. 
It is true that she is not a different type, in the sense 
that the peasant woman of Europe is different from her 
urban sisters, for in America the continual shift of 


population carries the farm woman to the city and the 
3 


[ all the recent discussion of the American woman 


4 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


city woman out upon the farm, in an unending read- 
justment. The difference is not in her appearance, nor 
in her education, nor in her racial background, but in 
the vigor and strength of the countrywoman’s spirit. 
For every woman on the farm in America, who is at 
all efficient, must have the strong body and the vigorous 
mind and the undying spirit of the pioneer. In her 
environment she is the real descendant of those cour- 
ageous women who crossed the Alleghanies in the early 
days and helped to found a home in the forest, where 
they fought shoulder to shoulder with their husbands 
against their common foes—the rigors of a pioneer life, 
the Indians, and the wild beasts of the forest. And 
their common victory in the midst of innumerable perils 
was due quite as much to her prowess as to his. ‘*The 
chief figure of the American West,’’ writes Emerson 
Hough, ‘‘the figure of the age, is not the long-haired, 
fringed-legging man riding a raw-boned pony, but the 
gaunt, sad-faced woman sitting on the front seat of the 
wagon, following her lord where he might lead, her face 
hidden in the same ragged sunbonnet which had crossed 
the Appalachians and the Missouri long before. That 
was America, my brethren! There was the seed of 
America’s wealth. There was the great romance of all 
America,—the woman in the sunbonnet; and not, after 
all, the hero with the rifle across his saddle horn. Who 
has written her story? Who has painted her picture?”’ 
There was no doubt of her equality in those days be- 
cause she showed herself equally capable in all the tasks 
of their life together, and she was proud to know that 
this was true. Her position had all the dignity and age- 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 5 


old strength of the real helpmate in everything that 
touched the welfare of the family and the home. And 
when she launched upon a career of her own, as did 
the sturdy Anne Bailey of the Appalachian frontier, who 
became an Indian scout, she was accorded all the honor 
that was her due by the men and women of the settle- 
ments. 

Of course conditions have changed greatly in America 
in the past hundred years. But even yet farm life is 
decidedly a vigorous adventure. The woman who suc- 
ceeds in that environment must still be strong in body, 
quick of brain, and indomitable in spirit. And in the 
farm life of to-day she has even more need for that 
adaptability which has been so necessary in the past. 
Our country life is in a state of rapid change, and many 
an inefficient family is being ground beneath the wheels 
of its progress. For the good old days of the early 
American frontier, with their crude methods and open- 
handed hospitality, are passing, by successive stages, 
into an organization of forces and a cultured ease and 
refinement similar to that prevailing in the cities. And 
the woman on the farm to-day, with her husband and 
her children, stands somewhere midway, alternately torn 
by influences toward the old and toward the new. 

It is a most difficult position to hold with stability 
and common sense. And it is the woman on the farm, 
with her keen sense of values in life, who must decide 
where her family shall stand. On one side of her may 
live a family of the old days, with ideas and living con- 
ditions little removed from those of the early settler’s 
cabin in the forest, or a family of recent immigrants 


6 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


with the customs of their old home in Europe. On the 
other side may live a family of wealthy and cultured 
city people, who maintain a country home for health or 
pleasure. Yet somehow under these difficult conditions 
the woman on the farm must evolve a wholesome home 
life—not too much like the one nor too much like the 
other—so that her children will be happy and contented 
and equally at home in conditions the most primitive 
and the most modern. | 

It is a most important matter in the happiness of her 
family. For whenever the country home fails to pro- 
vide a proper environment the young people become 
restless and the older people discouraged and unhappy, 
because they feel that their standards have lost all sta- 
bility. They begin to feel that every one else is better 
off than they are. And the result is in many com- 
munities a wholesale exodus to town, where the country- 
bred families are usually neither happier nor more 
prosperous than they were in the open country. But 
the wise woman knows that a move to town will 
probably not improve their condition. So she keeps 
for her family the best of the old customs of the country 
life of the past, and adds to them as much as she can of 
the attractions of city life so that her children will feel 
that the modern world is not passing them by. If she 
succeeds she will have the satisfaction of having her 
children love the farm and farm life, and the country 
dwellers of the future will be descended from the same 
hardy and vigorous stock as are the rural people of to- 
day. But if she fails, then our American country life 
as we have known it and loved it—the beautiful and 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 7 


inspiring and hearty country life of Washington and 
the Western pioneers—will be a thing of the past, and 
our fields will be tilled in the future by an ignorant 
peasantry. 

But those who know the American farm woman have 
few fears that she will fail in anything. Our country 
life has set so high a standard for her that she is not 
only energetic but highly adaptable, and when a change 
comes she is ready to make the most of the new con- 
ditions. This was shown most dramatically in many 
parts of America during the World War, when the 
country people responded instantly to every patriotic 
appeal. And with the sudden rise in prices hundreds 
of farm homes were fitted with water and electric-light 
systems and other conveniences of the cities, showing 
clearly that all the American farm people need is a 
fair economic opportunity, to bring their homes to the 
level of the most cultured in America. And when the 
development of the radio brought a new convenience 
to be had at a reasonable price, the farm homes re- 
sponded instantly. It is estimated that there are now 
no less than one hundred and forty-five thousand radio 
receiving-sets in the farm homes of America. The 
farm people are not backward in seeking the benefits of 
modern improvements when they have the money to 
spend. 

But though modern conveniences are on their way to 
the country, they have not yet arrived to such an ex- 
tent that the farm woman’s resourcefulness has lost its 
value. She still has many opportunities to make much 
of little, to be a courageous pioneer in rural social af- 


8 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


fairs, and by her main strength to provide comforts for 
her family. So the woman on the farm to-day is per- 
haps the busiest woman in the nation. She is the arbi- 
ter of health and happiness in her family; she is an im- 
portant factor in her husband’s success on the farm; she 
often carries on a career of her own in some side-line 
and takes more or less part in a wide variety of com- 
munity affairs. But if she is the busiest of women, she 
is also one of the happiest. She finds little to complain 
of in her lot. Mr. Sherman J. Lowell, former Master 
of the National Grange, once remarked that in all his 
acquaintance he had never known a discontented country 
woman. And a farm woman in the State of Washington 
writes me: ‘‘I think if you asked the farm women as 
to our life on the farm, you ’d find as a whole we ’re a 
pretty well contented set.’’ ’ 

She is conscious of her worth. She never has any 
doubts about the vital necessity of her services to the 
family and to the community; the need for them is too 
apparent to all eyes. The home could searcely exist 
without her, or her husband’s business be successful. 
She is still the real lady—the ‘‘loaf-giver’’—and she 
works in partnership with nature in real creative power. 
So her service makes life beautiful and rich for her in 
the midst of her toil and her days are filled with the 
satisfaction of well-directed effort. In this respect she 
is much better off than the average city woman, from 
whom so many of the really vital tasks of the family 
life have been taken away by other agencies, one by one, 
until only the husks are left in her hands. Whatever 
task she occupies herself with, in the absence of primitive 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 9 


hand-service, she is apt to feel herself more an orna- 
ment or a convenience than a sustaining factor in the 
family life. And the restlessness and discontent which 
this feeling engenders is often more harmful in its 
effects than any degree of physical weariness. 

One of the most striking characteristics of the average 
country woman is her optimism, in the face of all dis- 
couragements. It would seem that in the past few 
years, when the unbalanced condition of the world’s 
trade has resulted in low prices for everything the 
farmer has to sell, and high prices for everything he 
has to buy, conditions would intimidate the most stout- 
hearted. And yet thousands of farm women the coun- 
try over expressed themselves in letters as hopeful for 
the country life of the future. Even those who were 
pessimistic deplored only the farmer’s economic losses, 
and showed no lack of appreciation of the country home. 
For the average American farm woman is country- 
minded. She loves the soil and believes in it and believes 
in the ultimate success of the people on the farm. The 
country is to her the home of her spirit as well as the 
home of her body. For however poverty-stricken and 
unsightly the immediate farm surroundings may be, 
eountry life is always beautiful to those who love it. 
The ever-changing beauty of the trees, the hills or 
plains, the clouds, the sheep feeding on the hillsides 
or the silhouettes of grazing cattle along the sky line 
always invite the eyes. And the morning fog in the val- 
ley, the green of the fields and the flowers of the mead- 
ows form scenes that the country woman thinks are 
more beautiful than any picture painted by an artist. 


10 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


And when she looks across the fields she enjoys think- 
ing: ‘‘This land is all our own, no rent to pay every 
month, and no landlord to interfere. This ground pro- 
duces bread for our children and feed for our stock, and 
some to spare for the hungry city people. Whatever 
happens it will provide for all our real necessities.’’ 

There is an elemental security in life on the farm 
which appeals to a woman’s deepest instincts. She feels 
that whatever else may change with the winds of popu- 
lar enthusiasm or political power, she, at least, stands 
upon the bedrock of life. ‘‘One generation passeth 
away,’’ she might say with the writer of Ecclesiastes, 
‘*and another cometh; but the earth abideth forever.”’ 
A Wisconsin woman writes: ‘‘The very fact that many 
farm women are working calmly, patiently along, with- 
out all the modern improvements shows that they are de- 
riving a certain other satisfaction from life. Just as the 
plant sends its roots down into the earth, and the rose, or 
the potato draws up materials for its individual exist- 
ence, beauty or usefulness, so does each person’s life ab- 
sorb from the surroundings the thing which it requires 
for its needs. We, the farm women, are where we belong. 
I feel that this close-to-nature elemental existence, is the 
fullest, richest source of emotional satisfaction. And 
we pay the price. We give our services, and we give up 
the superficial, sensational stimulants of society and 
fashion, so we feel square and honest aS we take our 
gifts.’’ 

Their pleasures are simple ones but they are real pleas- 
ures. A New York farm woman writes me: ‘‘I wish 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 11 


people generally knew what we on the farms know— 
that there is comfort, real comfort, in plain living and 
calm, clear-headed thinking, in the sweet old-fashioned 
way of working till you are tired, commending yourself 
to God at night, and enjoying a good deep sleep till 
morning breaks and you wake up rested. In walking 
over the fields in the spring to see how the ‘new-seeded’ 
are coming, in watching the different birds come back 
from the south each spring. In tending the little lambs, 
and chickens and calves, in watching things grow, in 
making your own delicious butter, in picking the rasp- 
berries from your own patch, and in getting the first 
peas and sweet corn, and in the fall in gathering the 
apples from the trees that your own grandfather planted 
on the farm years ago. They are simple things, all of 
them, but there are the simple virtues back of them that 
make life worth living.’’ 

Nor is the farm woman lacking in culture. It is not 
always recognized, though it is true, that the average 
farm woman is better read and better informed on the 
questions of the day than is the average city woman. 
Perhaps this is chiefly because there are fewer distrac- 
tions in the country and her rest time can be spent in 
reading. She may not keep up with every fad of the 
moment but on the worth-while things which are the 
basis of culture, she is well informed. She develops a 
pioneer spirit in her sensitiveness to truth, and checks 
up every printed statement with her own experience with 
life. The fact that she has little time for reading makes 
her turn a new thought over and over in her mind, a 


12 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


process which is far more educative than that of the 
woman in the midst of things who may accept what she 
reads without much question. 

And she has thought long and deeply about the funda- 
mental values of life. She has learned from her own 
experience that the greatest joy and contentment come 
from hard work at worth-while tasks and eager service 
for those you love. And she feels that nowhere in the 
world can her children learn those moral values which 
are always the highest good in life, and develop real 
stability of character, so well as in the country home. 
There they can learn the secrets of life, and responsi- 
bility in caring for helpless young animals, and can 
realize the suffering brought about by the neglect of an 
obligation. And this will secure their success and hap- 
piness in after years, wherever they may be. 

It is true that she also knows the imperfections of 
life on the farm and in the country community. But 
she usually has very definite ideas about how these faults 
may be remedied and she is ready and willing to assist 
in the task. Her attitude was shown clearly by one of 
the women at the Agricultural Conference called by 
President Harding. One of the men speakers had been 
bewailing the hard times. ‘‘Why,’’ he said, ‘‘the very 
bottom has dropped out of country life.’’ ‘‘ Well,’’ said 
the woman calmly, ‘‘if the bottom has dropped out of it, 
we'll just have to put another one in. I’ve done that 
myself to the coal-seuttle and the feed-bucket many a 
time.’’ And in the discussion which followed she 
showed that she had very practical ideas about how to 
put the bottom into the immediate situation. It is this 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 13 


eager and capable spirit in the woman on the farm that 
has always made life livable in the country and will 
continue to make it so. 

In common with other American women the farm 
woman has come to realize in the past few years that all 
her vital interests are not bound by the home, nor even 
by the farm. Her outlook is broadening very rapidly. 
With the development of better transportation and bet- 
ter roads country young people are brought more and 
more under the influence of community and town condi- 
tions. For their business dealings, recreation, instruc- 
tion, religious training and amusement they are going 
to town. Indeed all the country roads are leading to 
town in these days. The farm woman knows well 
enough that many of these influences are not what she 
wishes for her children, and yet, as an individual, she 
is powerless to change them. For this reason she is tak- 
ing an active interest in outside affairs and entering 
more and more into work for the public welfare. Even 
though at present her position as the center of the farm 
home leaves her little time and strength for other activi- 
ties, she is feeling the need of participation just the 
same. And when she thinks of home improvements, 
particularly of gas and electricity which would release 
her from many of the harder tasks, she thinks first of 
the time and energy which can be saved to go into work 
for her community. And as the farm home develops, 
it is likely that many of these strong and capable 
women will find time for all those civie duties which are 
quite as important as good food and clothing to the well- 
being of the family. 


14 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Since this idea is undoubtedly growing, along with an 
eager search for apparatus which will improve the work- 
ing conditions in the farm home, the country woman 
may soon take a much greater part in public affairs. 
And by codperating with the neighbors to accomplish 
some object for the general good she will help to lift 
the status of the rural home. She will see to it that 
all the local agencies for health, recreation, education, 
social life, and religion do their duty as they should and 
assist the home in the training of her children. F'or she 
wishes her children to have all the advantages of a well- 
rounded development which will make them fit members 
of any community in which they may live. In these 
endeavors, of course, the farm woman will not work 
alone, but with her husband and her children, toward 
the goal of a better country life for the future. 

And as her experience enlarges it will not be surpris- 
ing if the farm woman takes a high rank in the general 
women’s organizations. Certainly her quiet, unhurried 
common sense would prove to be excellent ballast in such 
organizations to steady the ship against the chance winds 
of propaganda and intrigue. Already she has been a 
steadying element in some of the rural associations for 
fifty years and more. Perhaps, too, in the multiplicity 
of modern organizations, she will help the leaders to 
do some real thinking on the public welfare—down to 
the fundamentals of life—and bring about such a re- 
organization of forces as will cover all the actual needs 
with a few important agencies, broad enough in their 
principles to enlist both city and country in their ranks. 


THE AMERICAN FARM WOMAN 15 


This is the greatest need to-day among those who are 
seeking to promote the public welfare in America. 

In politics the country woman is already taking part 
in some localities on school boards and in the State legis- 
latures. But as power areas spread over the country 
places, the prices for agricultural products rise and the 
woman is released from some of her heaviest tasks, she 
will undoubtedly take a much larger part. She will 
become the leader in a crusade for a higher standard 
of living in the country districts. And all the political 
parties will be the better for the infusion of her sternly 
practical and capable pioneer spirit into the public life 
of the nation. 


CHAPTER II 


THE FARM HOME 


UR home farm les in a broad and fertile val- 

() ley through which run the shining rails of 
one of the great railroad thoroughfares be- 

tween the East and the West, and when I was a child I 
was fascinated by the great passenger trains which 
every few hours went roaring by with their loads of 
human freight. In the daytime I ran to climb the big 
front gate to see them pass, and if I was awake at night 
I sat up in bed to see the bright flashing comet which 
was the midnight express. ‘‘Who are all these people 
on the trains?’’ I asked myself, ‘‘and where are they go- 
ing?’’ But my childish imagination simply could not 
picture a world big enough to hold them all. I felt 
that they must have come from another planet to whirl 
thus past our farmyard gate, and belong to a race of 
people very different from the home folks that I knew. 
And sometimes when I had grown quite weary of con- 
jecturing about them I turned about to look at myself 
from their point of view. I wondered what they were 
thinking of the lttle girl in the blue gingham dress, of 
the big front gate and the grove of trees, the huge barns 
and the old brick farmhouse, as they swept past our 


door, All this was far too much for my iriagination, 
16 


THE FARM HOME 17 


also, but it was such a fascinating game that even yet, 
whenever I think of the farm people I begin again to 
wonder what the people of the crowded cities are think- 
ing about us. 

Probably the men and women of the cities are not 
greatly impressed by our rolling fields and scattered 
houses; the wealth of the city is packed into such small 
spaces that our natural wealth must seem thin and un- 
important. And they do not see at all those intangible 
things which are the greatest value of the farm home. 
There is our farm, for instance. It is much more than 
its acres of wheat and timber and pasture lands. It was 
not only my birthplace, but the birthplace of my father, 
also. Many an evening around the sitting-room fire I 
heard the romantic story of how, long ago, my grand- 
father came down the river with all his little savings in 
his pocket, looking for a spot upon which to found his 
home and his fortune. So many miles had he gone, he 
had begun to fear that in all this Western world there 
was no place that he could enjoy—when suddenly the 
big steamer upon which he was travelling rounded a 
bend in the river and there among the friendly hills 
was a lovely valley, rich green with the lush grasses of 
new-cleared lands, and he knew in his heart that he had 
found his home at last. 

I knew the primitive log cabin on the river bank 
where he had spent the first struggling years. I knew 
the story of how the virgin forests, which covered much 
of the land, had been cut away, the big orchards planted 
and the plans made for the house that was to be. And 
I had heard many times of how the house was built of 


18 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


bricks of clay from the hill. I saw the wooden molds 
into which the soft clay had been pressed and asked a 
thousand questions about how they were baked so firm 
and hard that the walls would endure for generations. 
I saw the heavy chisels that shaped the stones for the 
foundations, and the queer, one-sided planes with which 
the simple wooden moldings had been cut. JI knew the 
history of every tree on the lawn before the house, how 
this great oak had been a forest tree under which per- 
haps the Indians had camped when they came hunting, 
how this giant pine had been carried, a little sapling, on 
my grandfather’s shoulder to be set in the new door- 
yard, and how the children of the family had insisted 
that this favorite tree and that be added to the family 
collection. And once when a tree had blown down and 
I had been asked to name its successor, I had felt that 
JI was making history, too. 

I heard of my grandfather’s reputation for integrity 
and justice, so that all who knew him trusted him, and 
of his care that even the smallest task be done with hon- 
est workmanship. I could well believe this, for I had 
often marvelled at the nicety of the wood-work of the 
huge mantelpieces and cupboards of the old house. 
And I remember, too, how my grandfather when he was 
old and helpless used to lie on a couch outside the door, 
his dim old eyes upon the smooth green lawn, the great 
trees and the sturdy old brick house. ‘‘What do you 
find to think about all the day long?’’ someone asked 
him. He smiled a lovely smile. ‘‘I am enjoying the 
work of my hands,’’ he said. 

All this the people on the speeding trains could not 


THE FARM HOME 19 


know. Nor could they know all that varied play-world 
of meadow and orchard and creek and hillside where 
we farm children went so busily about our small con- 
cerns every day. Each moment brought its own expe- 
rience with little wild things, with opening buds and 
ripening nuts and berries, with rainbows and sunrises, 
and all the thousand wonders of our country world. In 
all seasons and at work or play we had a continual con- 
tact with nature which gave a solid foundation for all 
our later learning. Had we been city children our ex- 
periences would have been as numerous, but they would 
have been more scattered and artificial, far more difficult 
to weld into a sound understanding of life. We might 
have lived in a rented house, or even have moved from 
one furnished apartment to another. Perhaps we 
should have been richer and had more leisure, but no 
wealth nor city comforts, it seems to me, could have re- 
paid us for the loss of that honest old farmhouse and the 
living tradition of that grandfather of ours. 

And so I say again that the greatest value of the farm 
home to the nation is not its bushels of wheat and corn, 
its herds of cattle and droves of hogs, but those intangi- 
ble things which are the very essence of our American 
life. Traditions are soon lost in the cities; the chang- 
ing fashion sets the pace, and the attention is contin- 
ually distracted by new amusements and new methods 
of work. But down on the farm the pace is still set by 
the changing seasons and the good old days of Washing- 
ton and Jefferson and of the Western pioneers still shed 
their influence through the fireside stories and the sim- 
ple heirlooms about the family home. The children of 


20 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the family circle learn very early to love the dignity and 
unhurried vigor of old times as well as the eagerness 
and enthusiasm of to-day, and they carry these stabiliz- 
ing influences with them wherever they may go. 

Some recent studies under the direction of Dr. C. J. 
Galpin of the United States Department of Agriculture 
have shown very definitely how wide an influence a very 
small group of farm people may have upon the life of 
the nation as a whole. In the course of ninety years 
the little farming community of Belleville, N. Y., sent 
out its young people to thirty-two other States, to 
Alaska and Panama and to several foreign countries— 
2,445 migrants in all, the number varying year by year 
according to the economic status of agriculture in the 
nation. It was shown that these farm folks had had a 
direct influence upon four hundred and _ thirty-eight 
communities in which they had settled, many of them 
becoming leaders in the life of the great cities. The 
names of those who succeeded in work of national im- 
portance form a long and impressive list. There is 
Daniel Burnham, the architect, who has designed build- 
ings for twenty-three cities in the United States and in 
London and Rome; Dr. Samuel Guthrie, the discoverer 
of chloroform; Charles N. Crittenton, philanthropist, 
whose rescue missions for girls have encircled the 
globe; Marietta Holley of ‘‘Samantha Allen’’ fame; 
and the brilliant, though unorthodox, Robert G. Inger- 
soll. Others are editors, orators, soldiers, judges of the 
state supreme court, United States Senators, founders 
of schools, and manufacturers, each with a wide in- 
fluence upon the national life. Yet the little ecommun- 


THE FARM HOME 21 


ity has always kept at home a sturdy race of farmers 
who have advanced its standards in succeeding genera- 
tions. 

Another little farm community among the hills of 
West Virginia, though having a radius of only two and 
a half miles, has sent out its young people to thirty- 
three States and to several foreign countries. Local 
records show that in three or four generations this little 
group has furnished two hundred and three school 
teachers, among them several university professors and 
a university president; twenty-nine music teachers; 
three noted natural scientists; fifteen ministers, one of 
them a widely known evangelist; six missionaries to 
foreign countries; twenty physicians; five dentists; 
three pharmacists; three optometrists; forty district, 
county and state officers, one of them a governor of the 
State; and seventeen commissioned army officers. At 
least one hundred and forty-three other communities 
have felt directly the influence of this hill-country 
neighborhood. And yet there are those who think that 
a farm is of little account except for the food it supples 
to the cities! 

These two communities are not at all unusual. They 
are but average examples of our American country dis- 
tricts, where every farm home is a seed-bed in which 
young folks are growing up until they are of an age to 
be transplanted to the cities and other communities. 

Few people understand this steady flow of the young 
from the farms of the country. It is a very necessary 
movement. The American farm usually consists of only 
so much land as can be managed efficiently by one man 


22 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


with the help of hired labor and machinery, though the 
actual number of acres varies greatly with the kind of 
farming. Because of the development of machinery the 
profitable unit of farm land in this country tends to be- 
come larger rather than smaller under most conditions. 
If one of the sons wishes to become a farmer he can, of 
course, assume control of the home place. But if an- 
other son wishes to farm, another plot of land must be 
found for him and for other farmers in the family. If 
the home lies in a good agricultural section, it is prob- 
able that a sufficient body of land cannot be secured, so 
the young people are forced out to other communities 
where land is more readily available, or to the city for 
a livelihood. Were all to remain on the home farm it 
would be divided into such small units that profitable 
farming would be impossible. 

Thus it is both necessary and desirable that perhaps 
two out of three of the young people of the farm home 
go elsewhere to seek their fortunes. There is no dan- 
gerous depletion of the farm community so long as 
enough intelligent and vigorous young people are left 
to till the farms and manage the neighborhood affairs. 
The real danger lies in a general exodus of whole fami- 
lies such as occurs in periods of disproportion between 
the proceeds of farming and the proceeds of other in- 
dustries, like that immediately following the World 
War. In many sections large tracts of land were al- 
most depopulated by the call of the cities, and in all 
probability it will be many years before stable homes 
of the best American type will be reéstablished in those 
places. 


THE FARM HOME 23 


The story of Russia has demonstrated very clearly 
that no nation can live by cities alone. However much 
enlightenment and culture and wealth may prevail in 
the crowded centers, they can never hold out in a 
democracy against the destructive forces of ignorance 
and anarchy surging up from the wide country places. 
So the farm home is not a local problem; it is a national 
problem of large proportions. As the farm life studies 
have shown, every little hill-country community is af- 
fecting for better or worse many widely separated cen- 
ters, many of them in the great cities of the land. It 
is easy to understand the influence these young people 
of the farms, well-grounded as they are in the funda- 
mental principles and traditions of Americanism, have 
had in the Americanization of the hordes of foreign 1m- 
migrants. Factory managers say that very often it is 
the farm boy or girl who, working shoulder to shoulder 
with the low-class Hungarian and the Russian peasant, 
speaks for law and order and for the true democracy of 
America which recognizes the rights of the rich as well 
as the rights of the poor. The farmer’s children know 
the difficulties of the property owner far too well to 
countenance any acts of sabotage or wanton destruction. 
They are often the saving factor in our difficult problem 
of the American melting pot. 

A nation can make real progress only when all the 
people, city and country, unite in the forward move- 
ment. This is the reason why our American culture 
and enlightenment must reach to the farthest farmhouse 
in the land if our nation is to be really safe for de- 
mocracy. Just now, because of the recent depression in 


24 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the price of agricultural products, hundreds of farm 
communities are having a hard struggle to maintain 
their standards of living. Even the best agricultural 
districts find the most necessary community projects be- 
yond their reach and they need encouragement and as- 
sistance. Scattered communities must provide elemen- 
tary and secondary schools so that the children need not 
be sent to the city to get an education. Adequate hos- 
pital service, dispensaries and visiting nurses are just 
as necessary to the maintenance of health in the country 
as in the city. Every possible development needs to be 
made for adequate light and power and means of trans- 
portation for every farm family. And none of these 
things are mere local issues. The nation as a whole 
must watch over the rural communities and take 
thought for their welfare, just as a great municipal 
government takes thought for the welfare of all its sub- 
urbs because, neglected, they affect the condition of the 
whole municipality. 

But this does not mean nites philanthropy or gov- 
ernmental assistance. What the farm people need is 
not outside interference with their plans but a real un- 
derstanding of their difficulties and a real codperation 
in their efforts to improve their conditions. Capital 
from the cities might well be invested in rural commun- 
ity projects, however, and long-time, loans upon farm- 
house conveniences should be the rule rather than the 
exception. Working capital is the great need, for in 
the country districts most of the local wealth is of neces- 
sity tied up in the land they cultivate. Yet it is only 
by community projects requiring much capital that in 


THE FARM HOME 25 


the future the American families can be maintained 
upon the farms from generation to generation. 

In payment for this interest shown by the city peo- 
ple the farm will return not only its corn and hogs and 
cattle, but also a steady stream of bright-eyed young 
people to carry the best American traditions into every 
city in the land. As the farmer himself will tell you 
jokingly, his young folks are indeed the ‘‘best crop’’ of 
his farm. And so, as I look back once more upon the 
little girl in the blue gingham dress who swung upon 
the gate to watch the roaring trains go by, I realize that 
every country child in every farm home is indeed of im- 
portance to the people of the nation. 


THe ACTIVITIES OF THE FARM HOME 


In the big and important business of farm and home 
the farmer and his wife are equal partners. He is the 
director of the general farming operations, and she of 
the home operations, and each acts in an advisory ca- 
pacity to the other. They are equally necessary to 
good country living. As every country person knows, 
good farming alone can never produce a pleasant coun- 
try life, in fact, certain kinds of good farming can 
make it most unpleasant. And good home-making alone 
can never make a happy family if the farm is run down, 
the products poorly marketed and the family feels the 
slackness of inefficiency and the pinch of poverty. So 
any real improvement in country hfe conditions must 
always come about by improving both the farm methods 
and the home methods and keeping them in their proper 
relation to each other. 


26 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


To the woman on the farm, the home is the index 
of the success or failure of the whole farming business. 
The farmer himself may become unduly interested in 
‘‘erowing more corn to feed more hogs to buy more 
land to grow more corn to feed more hogs—’’ but the 
woman on the farm never does. Her mind runs straight 
to the heart of the human problem of making the pro- 
ceeds of the farm provide for the happiness and well- 
being of every person in her household. It is not so 
much the money that she thinks about as what it will 
add to the quality of life that her family is leading, in 
helping to keep their minds and imaginations as well 
as their bodies properly fed, to make them enjoy life 
with a real enthusiasm, and to be capable of high think- 
ing and noble resolving. And she loves the broad acres 
of the farm chiefly because they are the means to the 
end of providing a high quality of life for the farm 
family. 

She sees clearly how much of human value is lost by 
short-sighted economic methods like that, for instance, 
of plowing up the dooryard to plant corn, or in other 
ways damaging the home business for the sake of the 
farm business. I remember that my Kentucky grand- 
mother used to shake her head sadly when she heard of 
such doings. ‘‘It’s a great sin,’’ she would say, from 
the wisdom of her eighty years of experience, ‘‘and 
people who do such things never get on.’’ Some people 
think that if a farmer has a good income he will live 
well, but the women of the country know that this is 
not always true. Unless the proper relation of home 
and farm is kept, the money may be used only to 


THE FARM HOME 27 


expand the farm operations or to bring in interest for 
some future purpose instead of brightening the daily 
living of the family. 

Several very earnest farm women have written me 
about what they call the ‘‘when we move to town’’ idea, 
which causes the country parents to save up everything 
for that future prosperous period, and by implying that 
‘fanything is good enough for the country,’’ give their 
children a contempt for country life. These women be- 
leve in living cultured, happy lives in pleasant, com- 
fortable homes every day and not putting off all the 
good things until they are too old to enjoy them. ‘‘A 
woman who does not give her home in the country as 
much thought as she would give it in the city,’’ one of 
them says, “‘is just inviting her girls to go to town. 
My girls have stayed with me because we have made 
home pleasant for them.’’ And they say that it is the 
place of the woman of the farm to stand out against the 
temptation to put every cent back into the farm invest- 
ment, if by that the children are cheated of their chance 
for development at the time when they most need it. 
They had better do without many things in after life 
than do without the training which would fit them for a 
high position. 

It is the spirit of the home that counts more than 
anything else. Some people do not ‘‘live poor’’ even 
in the greatest poverty, and others live poor always, 
even though they have the best of everything. So if the 
country family hopes to live well some day, it must be- 
gin by living well now, and make the home a place of 
culture, gentle manners, and of a wide interest in the 


28 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


world’s affairs, even if the furnishings are poor. Then 
if the day ever comes when the family has the money to 
buy the luxuries of life it will be entirely at home with 
them. But if the family begins by living poor to the 
extent of giving up all the little courtesies, its members 
can never feel quite at ease in the different atmosphere. 

The real happiness of a home often has little to do 
with the physical comforts or equipment. It is a matter 
of the spirit rather than of the body, and its presence is 
to be felt rather than seen. It springs largely from a 
sense of justice and mutual understanding among the 
members of the family, and the codperation which leads 
each one to work for the good of all. It is a little com- 
munity in which every one, from the head of the house 
to the baby, is allowed to have his own personality and 
his likes and dislikes and his share in the good things 
of the home, and yet is expected to perform his proper 
service to the happiness and well-being of those around 
him, and when necessary to sacrifice his own desires to 
the general good. It is this sense of responsibility, rest- 
ing upon each member, which makes the farm home such 
an excellent training school for children. Hach child 
learns to work without thought of personal reward, and 
to execute from day to day his small tasks as faithfully 
as if they were great ones. 

Because of its isolation from the outside world the 
farm home can be, if not everything, at least many 
things to all its members. It is a little fortress of the 
family among the fields. It gives the country family a 
sense of solidarity which no city family can possibly 
have. Family traditions are passed down by word of 


THE FARM HOME 29 


mouth, family traits are emphasized and intensified, and 
the personality of every child is molded by the family 
heritage. That this characteristic of the country home 
has some dangers no one can doubt—it sometimes leads 
to the development of misanthropes and other unsocial 
characters, but at any rate it always leads to definite 
ideas and ideals of life, and an intensity of character 
and a straightness of vision which are almost an im- 
possibility among the promiscuous influences surround- 
ing the city child. And the wise country mother tries 
to bring about the development in each child of the best 
of the family inheritance, but modified by a wide toler- 
ance for different characteristics as they appear in 
others. 

In the home business the farm woman looks out for the 
material needs of her family. Sheis interested primarily 
in the problems of consumption, just as her husband is 
interested primarily in the problems of production. She 
conserves and makes use of the farm products or the 
money brought in by the farm business. Otherwise, as 
the country people say, she would ‘‘throw out with a tea- 
spoon more than he could bring in with a shovel.’’ And 
the use of farm products for the best good of the farm 
family is not an easy nor a simple task, either mentally 
or physically. The efficient farm woman needs to know, 
as the Cornell Reading Course points out, ‘‘The relation 
of germ life to disease, of cleanliness to health and well- 
being; the physiological needs of the body for fresh air, 
clean water, wholesome food, sunshine, exercise and 
rest; the management of the income in the buying of 
food, shelter and clothing; the principles of art as they 


30 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


apply to the artistic arrangement of furnishings and 
wearing apparel; the characteristics and values of fab- 
ries and how to distinguish those goods which are gen- 
uine from those that are not; the relation of consumer 
to producer and of employer to employee; the needs of 
the house as a workshop wherein the time and energy 
of the worker have a market value; the maintenance of 
proper standards of living as indicated by wise expendi- 
tures.’’ All this in addition to the preparation of foods 
and preserving them for winter. It is true she cannot 
bring about good conditions in the home without the co- 
operation of her husband, but these are her special fields 
for study and she must usually be the leader in seeking 
them for the home. 

But these scientific housekeeping tasks are not the end 
of her labors. She must also be the home-maker, and 
this means much in the isolated country home. Miss 
Florence EK. Ward of the Department of Agriculture 
says of the farm women: 


Women realize that no amount of scientific arrangement 
or labor-saving appliances will of themselves make a home. 
It is the woman’s personal presence, influence, and care that 
make the home. Housekeeping is a business as practical as 
farming and with no romance in it; home-making is a sacred 
trust. A woman wants time salvaged from housekeeping to 
create the right home atmosphere for her children and to 
so enrich their home surroundings that they may gain their 
ideals of beauty and their tastes for books and musie not 
from the shop windows, the movies, the billboards, or the jazz 
band, but from the home environment. 

The farm woman knows that there is no one who can take 


THE FARM HOME 31 


her place as teacher and companion of her children during 
their early impressionable years and she craves more time for 
their care. She feels the need of making the farm home an 
inviting place for the young people of the family and their 
friends and of promoting the recreational and educational 
advantages of the neighborhood in order to cope with the 
various forms of ¢ity allurements. She realizes that modern 
conditions call for an even deeper realization and contact be- 
tween mother and child. The familiar term, “God could not 
be everywhere so He made mothers” has its modern scientific 
application, as no amount of education and care given to 
children in school or elsewhere outside the home can take the 
place of mothering in the home. 


The efficient home-maker takes time to play with her 
children as well as to work for them—it is one of the 
most sacred duties of the mother. She passes on to 
them all the golden treasury of nursery rhymes, song 
and story, that is every child’s rightful heritage, and 
the precious chronicles of family life, the stories of 
‘‘when I was a little girl,’’ of grandfather and grand- 
mother and the great grandparents, of heroic uncles 
and beautiful aunts, of the family seat in the ‘‘old 
country,’’ and all the other lore of the family living. 
Around the open fire in the evening she takes part 
in the good old country pleasures of popping corn, roast- 
ing the red-cheeked apples on the grate, roasting pota- 
toes and chestnuts in the ashes, and reading the pictures 
in the glowing eoals in terms of high adventure and 
romance. 

It is interesting to know that many of the games and 
rhymes in which country children deliight—like London 


32 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Bridge, Old Mother Witch, Drop the Handkerchief, 
Blind Man’s Buff, Jacks or Knuckle-Bones, and many of 
the ball games—have come down from mother to chil- 
dren from so long ago that even history cannot record 
their beginning. The old-time singing games and 
counting out games are also as much a part of a child’s 
education as anything he learns in school; and he should 
certainly learn every one of those which are common 
in that locality or are a part of the family background. 

Simple dramatic work will feed the children’s imagi- 
nation more than anything else. They love to act out 
the stories they read or hear until they actually live 
them vividly and heartily. Robinson Crusoe tramps the 
shore and watches for a sail in many a country sitting- 
room, bold bandits set off in rocking-chair boats to sail 
the Spanish main, and Indians and pioneers struggle 
for supremacy in the dark forest of the dining-room 
chairs. And it is safe to say that no child ever entirely 
forgets a story which he has thus entered into in his 
play. Some families deliberately develop this ability 
by a fireside game called ‘‘Who Am I[?’’ Each child in 
turn tries to impersonate some one, either a real person 
or a character in a book, and the others guess who it 
is. If the acting is so poor they can not guess, then 
he loses his next turn. Thus the children learn to be 
more observant of book characters and people, even of 
animals and birds if these are added to the play, and to 
express them in action. As the children grow older, 
they can turn the home into a little theater in which all 
the family and friends take part in staging plays from 
their favorite books and stories, and ransack the attic 


THE FARM HOME 33 


and closets for costumes and properties. Of course this 
does not lead to very orderly housekeeping in the farm 
home, but as a country woman writes, ‘‘there are lots 
of things more important in life than just good house- 
keeping.”’ 

‘‘Show me the home wherein music dwells,’’ said 
Longfellow, ‘‘and I will show you a happy, peaceful 
and contented home.’’ And indeed this is true. Some 
of my pleasantest memories are of an American family 
of Welsh parentage in which every member was ex- 
pected to add, with voice or instrument, to the family 
harmony. Whether the music is classical or popular, 
or the fine old ballads of the mountaineers, it is a form 
of expression which children instinctively love, and the 
wise mother makes the most of their interest for whole- 
some and satisfying good times in the farm home. 
Even if the family cannot afford a piano, singing is 
always possible, and a flute, violin or guitar costs very 
little. In fact, all that is needed is a real desire for 
music and the family will find some way to make the 
evenings melodious and pleasant. There is another 
reason, too, for family music, in that the country 
neighborhood is always in need of musical leadership. 
High places in the Grange and church and other com- 
munity organizations are always ready for the person 
who knows how to sing or play or to lead others in 
musical expression. 

In fact, in many ways the country home must always 
do a great deal of ‘“‘lifting on its own boot-straps’’ 
because of the inefficiency of some of the country life 
institutions. In districts where the country church 


99 


34 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


fails, the home must provide religious instruction and 
worship. If the country school does not teach, the 
home must. And if the local social organizations do 
not provide the sort of happy and hearty recreation 
and entertainment which the children need, then the 
home again must become a social center in which the 
children of the family and their friends can hold high 
revel in all the normal fun of childhood. It is as much 
the function of the home as that of feeding the mouths 
and sheltering the heads of the farm family. 

For the farm home is a real institution, and a most 
complicated and important one. It has a three-fold 
mission to perform, and its efficiency must be judged 
according to the measure in which it develops each 
phase of its work in harmony with the others. First 
of all, its purpose is to furnish the farmer and his 
wife with a place for happiness, comfort and personal 
development. The man has his own life to live and the 
woman has her own life to live and they seek the home 
life to realize themselves, as men and women have done 
in all ages. And each must have the opportunity to 
work out a satisfying life according to his own bent. 
The second purpose of the home is as a place for 
children. For years in the home life most of the 
activities will revolve around the children and be 
governed very largely by their needs. Their care 
while little, their education and training and recrea- 
tion, and finally their settling in some lifework and in 
homes of their own are important periods of the life 
of the family. And for the third purpose, the farm 
home must always take its part in making the farm 


THE FARM HOME 35 


business a profitable venture. It is true that in some 
instances too much of the work of the farm takes place 
in the home, and this is very undesirable, but the home 
and the farm can never be entirely divorced as are 
the city home and the city man’s business. It must 
have a hand in building up the farm. And the farm 
business there transacted and the training given will 
always make a great deal of difference in the final 
success or failure of every agricultural undertaking. 


CHAPTER III 


THE FARMHOUSE 


HE farmhouse, its convenience and comfort, 
plays such a large part in the happiness of the 
farm family that the building of a new home 
should never be undertaken without a careful study of 
every part of the problem of fitting it to the farm needs 
and the needs of the family. The College of Agricul- 
ture of your State is glad to give expert assistance in 
the laying out of the farmstead, locating the farm home 
and building the best type of house to serve all pur- 
poses. Some States have published in bulletin form 
architects’ plans for farm homes. The State Board of 
Health will give valuable suggestions about the situation 
of the house from a health point of view. And the 
United States Department of Agriculture has many ex- 
cellent bulletins on the subject of the well-planned, well- 
built, well-equipped country home. 

That it is unwise for the farmer to depend upon his 
own ideas of building or upon those of the local car- 
penters or masons is shown by the numerous inconven- 
ient, poorly-planned farmhouses the country over, which 
take toll of the housewife’s energy every day from gen- 
eration to generation. Yet the mere fact that an archi- 


tect 1s secured to draw the plans for the house by no 
36 


THE FARMHOUSE 37 


means insures a convenient country home. Most of the 
architects know only city or suburban conditions and 
they sometimes seem loath to adapt their plans to the 
making of a truly livable country house. They cannot 
even be depended upon to take into account that the 
general style of the house should fit into the scenery 
about it. Otherwise we should not have the many ab- 
surd, narrow, citified farm houses—which look as if they 
had strayed out from town and got lost—that one sees 
in some parts of the country. I know of several such 
country homes, three or four stories in height, of which 
the weary housewife would gladly exchange at least a 
whole story for the convenience of one more bedroom 
on the ground floor. Either the architect was at fault 
or someone chose the plans most unwisely, and the re- 
sulting mistake is almost impossible to rectify. 

The whole plan of the country home should be differ- 
ent from that of the city home. In the city home nearly 
all the activities of the family lead them in and out of 
the front door. So everything is properly arranged with 
reference to convenience to the front entrance. But in 
the country home the family activities for the most 
part lead them in and out of the side door or a rear door 
toward the barns and stables and gardens and chicken- 
yard. For this reason, the side or rear door must be 
considered the real entrance and the rest of the house 
planned with that in mind. If possible, it should lead 
into a small entry way with doors opening into the farm 
office, the wash room and the family sitting-room. And 
because of the fact that the housekeeper must spend 
much of her time in the kitchen, the stairway should 


38 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


be in the rear of the house instead of in the front, 
to save a great deal of extra walking in the trips 
up-stairs. And all doors should be so placed as to 
give the most convenient passage from the side or the 
rear. 

The country kitchen must usually be larger than that 
provided for the city or suburban home. "When one 
country woman was asked about new plans for a house 
she said, ‘‘I want to be sure about one thing, and that 
is to have room in the kitchen for the ealf.’’ And it is 
true that there should be room enough for the ealf and 
the pet lamb, and even a basket of early hatched chick- 
ens in an emergency, but there should be no waste space. 
It is also convenient to include a cozy and comfortable 
‘breakfast nook’’ in which the family ean have their 
meals, especially in the winter time. The kitchen sink 
should be near a window with a good view, and proper 
space should be allowed for the oil stove as well as for 
the range, and for a dumb-waiter to carry food to the 
cellar. And because the room is large the apparatus 
for different kinds of work should be grouped with 
great care so that any cooking operation can be earried 
on without a great deal of walking. Some farm women 
like the kitchen in the front of the house so that they 
ean see the people passing on the road while they are 
working, and have time to take off the soiled work apron 
when they see some visitor coming. Many of the homes 
in England are arranged in this way, and if the farm 
buildings are at the side, and the farmhouse is not too 
near the dusty road, it can be made most convenient. 
It is often only a rather senseless tradition, which keeps 


THE FARMHOUSE 39 


the housekeeper cooped up in the rear of the house away 
from everything that is going on. 

The farm dining-room may open with glassed doors 
or wide windows toward the gardens or the orchard. 
It need not be large, especially if there is a wide open- 
ing with double doors between it and the living-room. 
Throwing the two rooms together will give a large space 
for the long tables necessary for occasional big com- 
pany meals and for the threshing and harvesting crews, 
as well as for community get-together meetings of va- 
rious kinds. In many country families the dining-room 
is used for the family sitting-room in winter, the meals 
being served in the kitchen breakfast nook. This saves 
the other sitting-room from the wear and tear of the 
children’s play, so that it is always ready for visitors. 
“‘The comic papers poke fun at farmers’ wives for keep- 
ing parlors or living rooms in which to entertain 
guests,’’? a farm woman says. ‘‘But city folks haven’t 
the least idea how dirty the farm sitting-room can get 
a day or two after it is cleaned. The men’s clothes 
are covered with chaff, dust and dirt of every sort, not 
to mention the odors of fertilizer, manure and so on. 
The children have no spick and span sidewalks to play 
on, so their shoes are generally all gummed with mud. 
Do you wonder we want to keep one room, at least, 
where we will not be ashamed to entertain a casual 
guest ?’’ 

The farm office is a new addition, but a very necessary 
one. The modern farmer must be a thorough business 
man if he is to succeed and, like any other business man, 
he needs a convenient office for his desk and account 


40 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


books, and for all the bulletins, catalogs, and other 
literature relating to his daily work. It should be 
so placed that the farmer can bring in the hired men 
to talk over their accounts and other farm matters with- 
out going through the kitchen or the family living- 
room. And there he can retire for thought or reading, 
away from the hubbub of the family life, and spread 
out the papers for his farm inventory, or his drainage 
blueprints, where they will be safe from baby fingers. 

The farm washroom is another great convenience. It 
should have running water and plenty of coat-hooks. 
The men come there and wash up before going in to 
meals, leaving their muddy boots, wet coats, and chaff- 
covered overalls, so that a great deal of dirt and dis- 
order is kept out of the dining-room. In some farm 
homes the washroom serves as a laundry also, as farm 
women generally prefer the laundry on the ground floor 
rather than in the basement. 

One downstairs bedroom is almost a necessity in the 
farm home, and two are even better. The country 
housekeeper gets exercise enough in the run of the day’s 
work without the many trips up and down stairs. And 
in case of sickness, the patient can be put in the down- 
stairs room, close to the worker in the kitchen. If pos- 
sible, there should be an open fireplace in the living- 
room and in the bedroom, even if the house is heated 
with a furnace, as the open fireplace provides good ven- 
tilation, is cheerful, and most useful in the cool days of 
spring and fall when the furnace is not in use. There 
should also be a downstairs bathroom. If there is no 
water system, this bathroom may be fitted with a small 


THE FARMHOUSE A 


hand pump for cold water, and hot water can be ear- 
ried from the kitchen range which is but a few steps 
away. A chemical closet can be installed also. The 
farmer’s wife will find the first floor bath and toilet 
most helpful; it will save her many steps, especially if 
she is the mother of small children. And she spends so 
much of her time in and about the kitchen, that she 
should have every comfort and convenience close to that 
part of the house. 

When a new house is built, even if funds are not 
available for installing a water system, a heating system 
and an electric light system at the time, it should always 
be planned with that in view, for as the farm income 
expands, as it almost certain to do in the next few 
years, the family will want all the new improvements 
in their home. For saving in plumbing, the upstairs 
bathroom should be located directly over the kitchen, 
and the downstairs bathroom next to it. Another con- 
venience which should be planned for, if not built at 
once, is a large well-screened back porch where the 
housewife can prepare fruit or vegetables and do other 
work in the open air; also a balcony or sleeping-porch 
upstairs where she can shake the rugs and air the bed- 
ding without taking them downstairs. 

But the new farmhouse is the exception rather than 
the rule in America to-day. The usual problem is that 
of adapting an old building, solidly constructed, per- 
haps, but put up by main strength and awkwardness 
rather than by careful planning, to fit the needs of the 
farm and the family. And with all our new ideas of 
heating and lighting and water supply and sewage dis- 


42 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


posal to be incorporated in a clumsy old building, the 
problem is by no means an easy one. Yet many farm 
families have taken a real joy in making over an old 
farmhouse little by little until it has all the modern 
conveniences and makes a really pleasant home for the 
family—all the more pleasant because of its mellow old 
age and traditions. Some of the bulletins issued by the 
agricultural colleges give much attention to the remodel- 
ing of old farm homes into convenient dwellings for the 
modern family. 

Very often the inconveniences of an old house are as 
much in little things as in big ones. A door opens awk- 
wardly the wrong way, the sink in the kitchen is in a 
dark corner, exits and entrances must be made at in- 
convenient places, and the rooms are too large or too 
small for their purposes. Sometimes the cutting of an 
extra window or two, into which window frames bought 
from a mail-order house can be set by the farmer him- 
self, will change the whole outlook for the home worker. 
A new door may save hundreds of steps each day. And 
a woodbox which ean be filled from the outside will save 
much dirt and litter. A pass-cabinet between the din- 
ing room and kitchen will sometimes greatly assist in the 
convenience of serving and clearing away the meals. 
And a pipe to carry off waste water from the kitchen 
will save much heavy lifting. If all the family are 
ealled upon for their ideas of efficiency in the home and 
then for assistance in carrying them out in a practical 
way, the changes can be made very quickly. 

The problem should be attacked at once, and vigor- 
ously. It is a great mistake to put off making changes 


THE FARMHOUSE AS 


because one does not have the money to do everything 
at once. The way to begin to improve a kitchen is to 
begin and then keep at it, until finally it is made over 
into a convenient workshop. One of the first things to 
change is the height of the work tables and sink. For 
some reason, every old table I ever knew was made too 
low for the worker so that it is little wonder that 
stooped shoulders were so common among housekeepers 
in the past. Tables can be raised by fitting them with 
casters, by fastening blocks of wood to the legs with 
metal strips, or by taking off the table top and building 
up underneath it. The following table indicates the 
proper height of the work table, or the bottom of the 
kitchen sink, in proportion to the height of the worker: 


HEIGHT OF WORKER HEIGHT OF TABLE 
RCE EL MING NOS Gals cers ol tnchiei ev algie a a scones 27 inches 
PT UTEP SY FRSC a aS aba UR OO 28 inches 
SLECUR EC TINCUCS. Wes te aloe. v's sos damataias 29 inches 
REM OO ba A TTICNES cr Meise te cc 'c'e ee ects ata aueate 30 inches 
DURLBCL Gr Inches it: sear he ass « Pe etch 31 inches 


Tf a child assists with the kitchen work, she can use a 
low, well-built step or platform on which to stand when 
working. 

Sometimes a big, inconvenient kitchen can be made 
much more useful by cutting off a part of it for a wash- 
room and laundry or for the farm office, then re- 
arranging the kitchen furniture for the greatest conven- 
ience. If possible, there should be opposite windows 
in the kitchen so that a cross draft will carry out un- 
pleasant odors and make the room cool in summer. But 


AAs THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the cross draft must not, of course, blow across either 
the wood range or the oil stove or it will interfere 
with the cooking. All the furniture and utensils should 
be grouped with a view to saving steps in the different 
operations which take place in the kitchen. In figur- 
ing distances, a pedometer is helpful, or the counting 
of the steps one takes in getting a meal or mixing a cake. 
As it takes about 2,600 steps to make a mile, one can 
even figure out how many steps she takes in the course 
of a year. 

Very often the number of steps can be cut almost in 
half by a re-arrangement of work tables and of utensils. 
A good grouping of the smaller utensils is as follows: 
Near sink or table—dish pan, dish drainer, scouring 
materials; to hang behind sink or table—soap shaker, 
paring knives, dish mop, plate scraper, pot scraper; in 
cabinet or near work table—measuring cups, mixing 
spoons, knives, measuring spoons, spatula, egg beater, 
forks, pie tins, rolling pin, sauce pans, containers for 
flour, sugar, salt, and spices; by the stove—pot lids, 
potato masher, basting spoon, salt, pepper, and flour 
for gravies. Even the duplication of salt and pepper 
and flour on a little shelf near the stove will save a 
number of steps in preparing meals. If there is an oil 
stove, also, these should be duplicated again on its own 
shelf and matches should be kept in reach of each stove. 
The kitchen clock—and there should always be a kitchen 
clock—is placed where it can be seen from the work 
table and the sink. And every utensil which is used 
but a few times a year should be put away safely on an 
upper shelf, where it will not be in the way of the ordi- 


THE FARMHOUSE AS 


nary operations. It should never be allowed to occupy 
space needed for utensils used frequently. 

Some of the larger pieces of equipment besides the 
stoves, sink and work tables which are mentioned by 
the farm women as being most useful are a, kitchen cabi- 
net, either bought or built in, a dumb-waiter to carry 
food to the cellar, a fireless cooker set on a bench or 
stand, a wheel tray to carry food and dishes back and 
forth'to the dining room, a refrigerator or ice-box, and 
a high stool on which to sit when working. Others are 
also mentioned, but these seem to be considered essential 
to a good farm kitchen. 

Since it is very easy in housework to ‘‘get in a rut’’ 
and fail to see a way out of a bad arrangement, some 
country communities have found it helpful to have 
a general kitchen-improvement campaign. Sometimes 
this work is led by the home demonstration agent, some- 
times by the Grange or some other local group. The 
men and women meet and talk over the problems of a 
convenient kitchen, using government bulletins or books 
on home-making for suggestions. Then each tries to 
make the greatest improvement possible in the home 
kitchen. As new pieces of equipment are secured, visits 
are made back and forth and the women compare notes 
on, the different makes of oil stoves, lamps, fireless cook- 
ers, etc. In this way, they get suggestions from others’ 
kitchens which can be carried out in their own. Some- 
times they have a contest and outside judges are elected 
to decide upon the most convenient kitchen and the 
most beautiful kitchen in the group, and small prizes 
are given the winners, Of course in judging the results 


46 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the amount of money expended in equipment is always 
taken into account, so that the cleverly arranged kitchen 
of the poorest person in the group sometimes wins the 
prize. 

Of the larger and more expensive alterations to the 
farm home, the women place a water system and sew- 
erage system first of all. The problems of cleanliness 
are so serious and the weight of water which must be 
carried in and out so great that the installation of a 
good water system cuts the work more than anything 
else. With plenty of hot and cold water at hand, the 
preparing of vegetables, the washing of milk things, the 
weekly laundry and many of the other hardest tasks 
of the home are greatly lightened. There are excellent 
Department of Agriculture bulletins on the farm water 
supply and sewerage. The Ohio, Kansas, Missouri and 
New York Colleges of Agriculture, and perhaps the 
colleges in other states, have made special studies of the 
local problems in providing running water in the home, 
and some of the manufacturers of water systems put 
out very helpful booklets. So that if even a little money 
is available, the woman on the farm, by studying the 
question carefully, can find good plans for an efficient 
system in her own home. 

Next in importance in the saving of work is the home 
heating plant, to save the carrying in of coal and wood 
and the carrying out of ashes during the winter months. 
The pipeless furnace has long been a favorite in the 
farm home, and is often the only kind of furnace pos- 
sible in a poorly constructed old house. New houses 
should, if possible, have the furnace built in, or the 


THE FARMHOUSE ANT 


house so planned that a furnace can be installed later. 
Electricity for lighting and power has come to many 
farm homes in the past few years in the home electric 
plant. Some farm families that I know gave up the 
automobiles they had thought of buying and spent the 
money on water systems and electric light plants. 
The small gasoline engine which runs the electric light 
plant can be managed by the woman herself and the 
power can be used for the electric iron, the vacuum 
cleaner, and other electrical appliances. And the elec- 
tric lights do much to make the home bright and at- 
tractive and to make the evening chores more pleasant. 
Though these improvements cost considerable money in 
the beginning, the farm women say they sometimes save 
money in the long run because they release the woman’s 
time and energy from some of the heaviest tasks, so 
‘that she need not hire extra help, or can turn her at- 
tention to other tasks which are more profitable. In 
any case, such improvements give the housekeeper that 
free time which she so deeply desires for the making of 
a real home for the farm family. 


INTERIOR DECORATION 


The task which every true woman loves best of all 
is that of making a comfortable and beautiful home for 
her family. And the beauty of the home is of utmost 
importance because there the spirit of the family, as a 
family, is shown forth so plainly that even the stranger 
who comes to the door can learn it by his first glance 
around. And the children are continually, though un- 
consciously, influenced by the harmony of their sur- 


48 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


roundings. The kind of furnishings, the wealth of the 
family, have something to do with the impression which 
the home gives, but we all know that a happy household 
will somehow find means to make the home pleasant- 
looking even if there is little money. I remember 
when I was a child I often visited some people of French 
extraction. They had little money, and they had 
bought their rugs and other furnishings at the local 
store, yet even a child could feel that their house had 
an ‘‘air’’ and a dignity far above those of the neighbors. 
The difference perhaps was in the simplicity of the 
furnishings, the arrangement, and the spotless cleanli- 
ness of everything about the house. 

The farm woman may feel that her ideas of beauty 
are rather vague, especially if she seldom sees the in- 
side of the homes of others and has no books on the 
subject of home decoration. She may not understand 
just how to apply to her own conditions the good sug- 
gestions which appear in the magazines from time to 
time. She knows, however, that she likes certain things 
and dislikes others. And she knows that she enjoys 
the atmosphere of Mrs. Brown’s home while she feels 
there is something wrong with Mrs. Green’s. But some- 
times because she does not know exactly how to make 
her own home right instead of wrong, she gives up the 
idea of beauty altogether, feeling that so long as the 
furnishings are comfortable she ought to be thankful, 
even though they are not altogether pleasing to the 
eye. 

Yet many of the simplest and least pretentious of our 
farm homes carry out the principles of interior dec- 


THE FARMHOUSE 49 


oration to give harmony and beauty. The usual de- 
fect is that the home-maker has no real plan for her 
house as a whole. One room is improved at a time, or 
one piece of furniture bought at a time according to 
the idea of the moment, and without any relation to its 
harmony with the rest of the house, and the result is 
such a jumble of furnishings that the house is neither 
beautiful nor restful. It is true that one can seldom 
do over the whole house or shift all the furniture at 
once. She must do a little here and a little there, and 
use the rugs, carpets and curtains until they are worn 
out. But if she decides definitely upon how she wants 
the house to look and then works toward it with every 
change she makes, she can in time secure a good effect 
in the whole house. For the decoration of a home is 
like the painting of a picture, everything in it must ‘‘be- 
long’’ with the rest if one is to take pleasure in looking 
at it. It does not matter if many of the things are 
old if they fit into the picture properly, in fact, soft- 
toned old furniture and well-worn rugs are much easier 
to make into a pleasing whole than are the brighter new 
ones. 

One of the simplest methods of making the rooms of 
a house look as if they belonged together is to have all 
the woodwork in the same color. It is also, of course, 
an economy in buying the paint or stain. I remember 
one charming country home in which all the woodwork 
was in white, except the doors, stair-treads and banis- 
ters, which were mahogany. And all the walls were 
gray—a two-toned leafy forest paper in the hall and 
living room, a plain oatmeal paper in the dining-room, 


50 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


and dull-finished gray enamel paint in the kitchen. The 
hall rug was gray and tan and red, the living-room rug 
was gray with a darker border, the room brightened 
with splashes of orange and blue in lampshades and 
cushions. The dining-room rug was in soft oriental 
reds and blues. Upstairs the daughter’s bedroom had 
a satin-striped gray paper on the walls, with a tiny 
border of rose and blue, the cretonne window hangings 
and the bed covering were gay with rose and blue 
flowers, and the rose-colored lampshades were bound in 
blue. In the boy’s room the walls were covered with 
warm gray burlap, and the plain hangings were the 
same, bordered with red to match the shade of the num- 
erous pennants of his college, with which he had dec- 
orated the walls. The whole effect was pleasing and 
not in the least tiresome, though the whole house was 
done in the same colors. My only objection to it was 
that in bleak winter days the gray tones were a bit 
cold-looking—but this could have been relieved by 
warm-colored thin silk hangings at the windows. 

For most farmhouses I should prefer a warmer color- 
ing, perhaps a deep cream or ivory or a putty color 
instead of the gray. If the woodwork is of a fine wood, 
the old finish can be removed with a varnish remover 
and the wood stained a soft brown or gray. Then it 
can be finished with wax or a good furniture varnish. 


FLOORS 


The floor is the basis of any scheme of decoration and 
it is usually the despair of the country housekeeper, as 
she knows from sad experience it is almost impossible 


THE FARMHOUSE 51 


to keep the floors in good condition in the country home 
beeause of the continual tramping of heavy boots and 
shoes, laden with mud from the fields. For the past 
few years finished floors with rather large rugs have 
been considered most desirable, but if an electric vacuum 
sweeper can be used regularly, carpets are still possible 
from a sanitary point of view. For most houses the 
polished floors and rugs are undoubtedly the best. 
Some people think that carpets are warmer because they 
keep the drafts from the floor, but a neat molding 
fitted snugly against the floor along the baseboard, and 
small rugs in front of the doors will effectually shut off 
the floor drafts even in old houses. 

If the floor has been painted it can be cleaned with 
paint remover or lye and the boards scraped and sand- 
papered until the wood is clean. Old floors with the 
wood darkened by the years will need very little 
stain. My own experience has been that light oak or a 
very light gray stain will color them quite enough for 
a medium brown or gray. Floors should not be made 
too dark, because the dust and lint show plainly on a 
dark floor, and they tend to become darker with age and 
use. After the floor has been stained, a little of the 
stain is mixed with crack-filler and the cracks filled, 
then the whole floor rubbed with a wood filler before the 
varnish or wax is applied. The proper finishing of 
floors takes much patience and hard work but the result 
is satisfactory. Several years ago I treated the hard 
pine floors of our own seventy-five-year-old farmhouse in 
this way and they still have a good finish in spite of 
the hard wear. 


52 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Some experts advise the use of a ground coat of light 
paint over an old floor, before applying the stain and 
varnish, but personally I do not like the hard glassy 
effect thus produced, and the light undercoat will soon 
show through at every scratch. Even if the floor is 
considerably discolored or streaked the shadows from 
the furniture will usually hide most of its faults. And 
if a new board must be set in, it can be tinted to match 
the surrounding boards with a little dull brown stain or 
gray and brown stain mixed. In fact, I have never seen 
a floor so bad that I thought it would be improved by 
a, coat of ight paint under the varnish. A waxed sur- 
face is always beautiful, but it requires some work to 
keep it in condition, especially if snow and water are 
brought in upon it. It has the advantage, however, 
that a worn spot can be done over at any time by add- 
ing more wax and polishing it. Varnish is easier to 
keep in order but the worn spots cannot be renewed as 
often as one could wish. 

The rug should always be chosen carefully because 
it is the ground work of the whole scheme of decora- 
tion. It represents the ground in nature’s picture out 
of doors, just as the walls represent the scenery and 
the ceiling the sky. So, taking a hint from nature, the 
floor should always be darkest and dullest, the walls 
lighter, and the ceiling lightest of all—to give an airy 
effect to the room. For rugs, the wood browns and 
grays and dull greens are always popular, either in 
plain colors or finely figured designs with touches of 
dull mahogany reds, old blue or tan. Such floor ecoy- 
erings do not attract attention to themselves but form a 


THE FARMHOUSE 53 


fitting background for the other furnishings of the 
room. Plain velvet rugs with a darker toned border 
are pretty but they show dirt and footprints, so that 
many people prefer a small inconspicuous pattern for 
rooms where there is much hard wear. 

As to the kinds of rugs, the heaviest Smyrnas or 
heavy Wilton velvets best stand the hard wear under 
farm conditions, and they come in excellent colors and 
patterns, but they are expensive. Of the moderate 
priced rugs, tapestry Brussels in small designs, plain- 
color linen rugs, and heavy grass rugs give the best 
service. Old carpets can be woven into very satisfac- 
tory rugs also. For the upstairs rooms, there are in- 
expensive mixed wool and fiber rugs which are most 
attractive, though they do not wear so well as the linen 
or the all-wool Scotch woven rugs. Plain China mat- 
ting is also good on the upstairs rooms, and the hand- 
woven rugs of various kinds. 

For the entry from the stables, the wash room, the 
farm office and the kitchen, the floors may be finished 
with a coat of raw linseed oil renewed every six months. 
Or they can be covered with linoleum laid over a paper 
foundation and finished with a coat of waterproof var- 
nish. The whole question of the finish of floors and the 
kind of rugs used is most important to the housekeeper — 
because the constant hard wear in the farm home is 
disastrous to shoddy floor furnishings. 


A GENERAL PLAN 


Let us suppose, then, that the floors of the farmhouse 
have been stained a soft brown, and the woodwork has 


54 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


been painted a putty color or ivory with a finish of 
enamel. The living-room rug is brown with tan and 
dark red and blue in the figures. Since the rug is 
figured the wallpaper and draperies need to be rather 
plain. So the wallpaper is dull buff with a self-toned 
figure, the ceiling a light cream color, and the curtains 
are of heavy cream net, perhaps with overhangings of 
tan or dull red. No border is used with the wallpaper, 
though there may be a wood strip painted to match the 
woodwork, where the wall and ceiling meet. Over the 
fireplace is a good reproduction in color of a Madonna 
or a lovely landscape glowing in reds and browns and 
blues. The big family lamp has a simple parchment 
Shade which gives a clear yellow light to read by. The 
extra cushions are in dark red velour or velveteen, as 
they must stand much hard wear, and a strip of the 
* same material bound with dull gold braid is on the read- 
ing table. 

If new furniture is to be bought for the country 
living-room, nothing is better than the hand-made Mis- 
sion furniture which is now, because the fad for it has 
waned somewhat, selling at greatly reduced prices in 
the city stores. It will always be in good taste because 
it is simple and structurally honest and has real dig- 
nity. If it is not too heavy, it is very satisfactory and 
stands the hardest wear. In buying furniture it is al- 
ways better to buy a good quality with simple lines. 
If little money is available and the whole house must be 
furnished at once, many people find it better to buy a 
few good pieces and use very cheap furniture for the 
rest. Then as the family income warrants it, the very 


THE FARMHOUSE 55 


cheap furniture can be replaced by something better. 
For instance, the country dining-room can be furnished 
temporarily with a kitchen table and plain wood chairs 
and a cheap cupboard, all painted in some pleasing 
color. And later when handsomer furnishings can be 
bought, these pieces will be found useful for the kitchen, 
the porches, or the bedrooms. 

In the best bedroom the woodwork is in cream color 
with a deeper shade of satin-striped paper on the walls. 
The over-draperies of the windows, the chair cushions, 
and the bedspread are a bright cretonne with a cream 
background and a design of rose-color blossoms with 
touches of blue—the note of blue emphasized in the room 
by a vivid blue cushion or a simple blue vase for flowers. 
Other bedrooms can be developed similarly with differ- 
ent cretonnes or pretty ginghams to give the color note. 
The great advantage in adding the bright color by 
means of curtains, lamp shades, cushions, ete., is that 
if the color scheme does not prove successful, it can be 
changed without much expense. Pictures for bedrooms 
are usually chosen for their harmonious color as well 
as for their individual beauty, but in any case a picture 
should always be one that satisfies—that one can sit 
and look at indefinitely without growing tired of it. 
Sometimes a housekeeper, who has a picture of which 
she is proud, plans a room to suit it in coloring. 

If the bedrooms of the farmhouse are full of a collec- 
tion of many kinds of furniture, bought a piece at a 
time without regard to the other furnishings, they pre- 
sent a difficult problem. But something can usually 
be done by a re-distribution to place in one room the 


56 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


pieces of a similar style and finish, and banish all the 
worst pieces to one room. Very bright finishes of furni- 
ture can sometimes be improved by rubbing them with 
powdered pumice stone or very fine sandpaper and then 
waxing the surface and polishing it. 

But the room in which the worst furniture is placed 
is not by any means hopeless. Unless the wood is very 
fine, it is best to bring the ill-assorted pieces into har- 
mony by removing the finish and painting them all the 
same color, the final coat being of a good enamel. Be- 
fore painting, however, some of the useless decorations 
which rendered ugly so much of the furniture of years 
past can probably be removed. Glued-on carved work 
ean be cut off with a chisel, and sometimes the elab- 
orately framed mirror of an old bureau can be given 
a plain new frame and hung upon the wall with much 
better effect. With a few such changes and a conceal- 
ing cover of paint, an impossible bedroom can some- 
times be made to look surprisingly well. As an extra 
chair in the bedroom, an arm chair of willow is useful, 
with cushions to match the hangings in the room. It 
has the advantages of cheapness, comfort and harmony 
with almost any kind of furniture. 

Some farm housekeepers object to the use of lght 
paint if they have never tried it. But when they try 
it in one room, it is usually but a short time before 
the other rooms are painted light, too. It does much 
to brighten the house and is not difficult to keep clean 
if a good grade of enamel is used in the finishing. A 
little whiting on a wet cloth will serve for the usual 
cleaning and the windowsills and door facings can be 


THE FARMHOUSE 57 


repainted occasionally without doing over the whole 
room. Usually the doors, where sticky and greasy 
hands may do damage, are finished in mahogany, brown 
or gray. The painting of the woodwork will make the 
greatest change imaginable in the average old farm- 
house where fancy-grained finishes, dark red or blue 
paint, or bright golden oak is the usual thing. 

One of the chief decorations of the farm home should 
always be something from the out-of-doors. Not only 
the flowers from the garden, but those from the road- 
sides and sprays of apple-blossoms, autumn leaves, and 
all the other beauty of nature on the farm may be 
used. Some families keep a worthless apple-tree or 
peach-tree so that they can enjoy great branches of its 
blossoms in the spring, without thought of good fruit 
destroyed. Plain glass vases for displaying them are 
convenient in different sizes—tall vases for the taller 
plants, medium-sized ones, and low bowls for the pansies 
and violets. For the best effect is gained when the 
flowers look as they do when growing outdoors. The 
round glass, metal or porcelain flower holders such as 
are used by the Japanese are helpful in arranging the 
flowers in bowls because they hold the stems firmly in 
the water and give the flowers a graceful look. These 
can now be secured from the department stores as well 
as from the Japanese stores. Heavy jars of dark color 
are useful for holding large branches of blossoms or 
leaves. In my home I sometimes use some odd-shaped 
old brown jars in which the family sausage has been 
packed for several generations, and they give a very 
beautiful effect with red or yellow flowers, 


58 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Growing plants in the house in winter time are often 
much more trouble than they are worth, especially if 
they are too heavy to lift easily and so tender that they 
must be continually coddled to prevent freezing. But 
pots of English ivy will stand many changes of tempera- 
ture and furnish a touch of green in the winter days. 
And the city dweller has learned that the bit of bright- 
ness for the table is easily secured by planting a few nar- 
cissus or daffodil bulbs in water in a bowl, setting them 
in a dark place for a time and then bringing them out 
to the light. If bowls of the bulbs are started at in- 
tervals, one can have something growing for the living- 
room table all during the winter. After blooming, the 
bulbs can be planted out in the garden but they do not, 
of course, bloom the next season. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 


r “4O the average country person, a visit to Mount 
Vernon, the home of George Washington, is a 
revelation. Mount Vernon was one of the most 

productive and well-tilled farms in the Potomae valley 

in Washington’s day, but it was first of all a real home. 

The owner’s first thought seems always to have been 

for the graces of life, after which the problems of 

efficient production received their due attention. And 
to-day the visitor is deeply impressed with the beauty 
and dignity of the whole picture of the old white house, 
the gently sloping lawns, the beautiful trees, the long 
vistas to the Potomac and the general setting among the 

Virginia hills. George Washington was a wealthy man, 

but the charm of his home is not so much due to his 

wealth, as to his loving thought for the beautiful effect 
of his home surroundings. He was a student of land- 

Scape gardening, and we are told that he spent many 

hours planning what kind of trees to set out and just 

where to set them to give the harmonious groups about 
the grounds, and where to cut down others to open 
delightful vistas to the hills beyond or to the broad bend 
of the Potomac. And now Mount Vernon is a shrine to 


the American people because everything about the place 
59 


60 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


speaks of the great patriot-farmer. He still lives in the 
spirit of his home. As one stops to rest upon the broad 
verandah, one can almost see the Father of His Country, 
in his stately dress and powdered wig, going down the 
path toward the river. And we revere him to-day not 
only for his work in building the nation, but also be- 
cause he stands for all the best and highest things in 
our national culture. 

Of course, not every country dweller can have so fine 
a house or such spacious grounds as those which make 
Mount Vernon beautiful, but anyone can learn the 
simplest principles of landscape gardening and give 
some attention to the wider beauty of the home setting. 
For every farmhouse in America, however small and 
ugly, could by loving care, such as George Washington 
gave his home, be made a beauty spot in the landscape. 
It is not enough to have a neat yard and flower beds by 
the front door—real beauty is gained by considering 
the whole setting in the surrounding countryside, 
whether it be wide prairie lands, hills, woods or rivers. 
And to the woman on the farm falls the task of study- 
ing the possibilities of her home and interesting her - 
husband in the work of carrying out her plans for its 
improvement. 

If a new farmhouse is to be built, it is a compara- 
tively easy matter to give it a beautiful setting, by 
choosing for it a natural knoll and by so placing the 
other farm buildings that they will not be in evidence. 
It is then only a matter of laying out the drives and 
walks and making the plantings for a pleasant picture. 
‘*Planning the Farmstead,’’ Farmers’ Bulletin 1182, 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 61 


gives excellent help on all the practical problems of plac- 
ing the house in relation to the barns, gardens and 
fields, and some suggestions about the beauty of the 
arrangement also. 

But usually the farm woman cannot begin at the be- 
ginning. The old farmhouse, for better or worse, is al- 
ready upon the ground, probably very poorly placed 
with reference to its surroundings, and the barns and 
outbuildings dominating the landscape. Even if the 
situation seems quite hopeless;.a good deal can be done 
if the whole family codperates in making the changes. 
The first step for the farm woman who wishes to beau- 
tify her home is to go to some point in front of the house 
and study the problem. If she can have a comfortable 
seat and spend a rest period there occasionally, looking 
at her home as a stranger might look at it, so much the 
better. Very often a plan will gradually take shape 
in her mind as she studies the setting again and again. 
For she must think of the whole view as a picture, to 
which she can make additions or rub out as she desires. 
One farm woman told me she always thought of her 
house as a face, the trees and the lawn as draperies, 
and the fields and hills as the background, and she tried 
to keep them all as harmonious as an artist would in 
painting a portrait. 

One of the most desirable attributes of the farmhouse 
yard or lawn is size, even if it cannot be kept up as 
neatly as are the city lawns. The trig little bungalow 
with its bit of yard set with over-neat plantings is 
pretty in the city or suburbs but it seems quite out of 
place in the country. The country yard needs more 


62 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


spread and its plantings should be informal enough to 
spill over the fences a bit until one scarcely knows 
where the lawn ends and the surrounding fields begin. 
The apparent size of the yard can be increased greatly 
by a careful arrangement of other parts of the farm- 
stead. For instance, if the flower garden is laid out 
at one side of the house so that it can be seen from the 
road, and the orchard next to it, the grounds will seem 
much more spacious than they really are. Very often 
trees can be planted in the corner of the fields next the 
lawn, where they will serve as shelter for the cattle as 
well as add to the apparent size of the home grounds. 
I know one country place where a row of fine plum trees 
was set inside the fields by the yard, and the side fences 
formed a trellis for grape vines—the whole adding 
much to the beauty as well as to the efficiency of the 
farm. In fact, all the grapes needed for the family 
can be grown on vines trained upon trellises where they 
add to the beauty of the place or cut off the view of 
ugly outbuildings. And in the West especially, the 
farm woodlot, kept up for fence-posts and firewood, or 
the windbreak of evergreens, can add to the beauty of 
the home. 

When the farm woman has decided upon the general 
outlines of her picture, she can draw rough sketches of 
the house and grounds and background. Even when 
poorly drawn, they will help to show the proportions 
and to suggest changes that can be made to improve it. 
Soon she will have in outline the plan she hopes to. 
follow—making use of the best features of the place as 
it stands and making proper additions to complete the 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 63 


picture. Large trees especially should never be re- 
moved until one has made every possible effort to fit 
them into an attractive picture. Some one has said, 
‘‘It takes the Lord a hundred years to grow a 
tree, but any fool can cut it down in half an hour.’’ 
Even when one decides definitely to remove some of the 
trees, and this must often be done, it is wise to leave 
them in place until the new plantings have grown some- 
what. 

Some of the old colonial homes have a wooded lawn 
or grove, thick set with trees, through which one catches 
glimpses of the house, and this is very attractive in 
certain situations. In placing a new home a bit of 
natural woodland can sometimes be left in front of the 
house to form a very charming setting. But the mod- 
ern tendency seems to be toward the open lawn in front 
of the house with the planting to the sides and to the 
rear. The worst effect is that of straggling ‘‘ornamen- 
tal’’ trees or fancy flower-beds marring the middle of 
the view. As a farm woman remarked, such a lawn 
looks as if it were about to ‘‘get up and walk,’’ and it 
certainly is not restful. 

Let us suppose, then, that the farm woman has chosen 
for her picture a green lawn stretching in an unbroken 
sweep up to the steps of the house, bordered along the 
sides by shrubbery or trees, the hard outlines of the 
house softened by trees and foundation plantings, and 
the farm buildings partly screened from view. Large 
changes should be made first if possible. Perhaps the 
roadway is awkwardly placed. It should enter at one 
side of the lawn and swing over in a slight curve to the 


64 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


side door of the house—never run directly to the front 
door or wind about senselessly through the lawn. The 
drive must be well-graded, especially if it is a dirt road. 
Roads of macadam or gravel, surfaced with a coal-tar 
preparation, are best for country use. Brick paving or 
cement is too hard in its outlines and too light in color. 
For the idea is to have the roadway blend into its sur- 
roundings, not attract attention to itself. Walks about 
the house may be surfaced in the same way. If cement 
is used, its color should be well toned down with lamp- 
black to do away with its unpleasant whiteness in the 
grass. One of the prettiest walks for the back yard or 
garden is made of big flat stones set into the grass, so 
low that the lawn mower will pass over them. 

Usually the outbuildings are the worst eyesore of the 
farm. When they were built they were probably put 
where some one thought they would be convenient, without 
regard for appearances; when a little more care would 
have placed them where they would not be so much in 
evidence. If possible, badly placed barns and stables 
should be moved to a better location. A big barn which 
eannot be moved ean be partly hidden by plantings of 
tall trees like the poplars, and these also give the barn 
some protection from lightning. On one farm a great 
change for the better was brought about by placing a 
half dozen of the smaller buildings on rollers and as- 
sembling them side by side behind a grape arbor. And 
the farmer found after trying the new arrangement that 
they were much more convenient grouped in this fash- 
ion and saved him many a step in the course of the 
day’s chores. After all, it is not necessary to have each 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 65 


kind of work in a house to itself across the yard from 
everything else, as some people seem to think. The 
farmer should route his work at the regular tasks as 
the housewife does in her kitchen. And when he checks 
up the number of steps from one of the farm buildings 
to another he may find that efficiency and beauty can be 
attained at the same time by a general re-arrangement. 

The color of the farmhouse is important in working 
out the picture. If there are many trees, nothing is an 
improvement upon the colonial fashion of painting the 
house white with green shutters. It shines out from 
the green with both cordiality and dignity. A weather- 
beaten house without paint will blend softly into its 
background, and one can secure a similar effect by us- 
ing paint or stain of soft gray or moss green. Brick 
houses, when painted, are best in some brick color—a 
dull creamy buff is much better than the usual brick 
red. When a trim is used, it should be lighter than the 
body of the house, to set it off from the darker back- 
ground, but any trim should be used sparingly on coun- 
try homes. <A dull buff color with a white trim and 
porches, and dark green shutters make a good combina- 
tion. If there are many sawed or turned decorations on 
the house, its general effect can be improved a great 
deal by painting it all in one tone. 

The trees about a farmhouse serve a double purpose 
of furnishing shade and forming a frame for the pic- 
ture. For the second purpose, they may be set some- 
what in front and at each side of the house—allowing a 
great deal of space for growth if they are varieties 
which become large. Thus placed the branches will in 


66 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


time cover some of the angles of the house and soften 
the general effect. Or if the house is beautiful in it- 
self the planting can be made at the rear to form a 
background for it. The trees chosen should be those 
which thrive in that region—good native trees are usu- 
ally best—and those which seem most beautiful to the 
home-maker. Many farmers use one variety largely in 
the planting and then name the home from the trees— 
The Elms, Seven Oaks, Maplecroft, Hickory Hill, ete. 
A few varieties of trees are undesirable because of their 
lack of permanence. In general the catalpas, poplars 
and willows are rapid growers and useful for temporary 
plantings, but as they grow older break easily and be- 
come shabby-looking. A few evergreens are charming 
in the winter landscape but too many of them will make 
the scene gloomy and if they are near the house will cut 
off the light from the windows in the winter time. 
Great care must be taken that the trees are not planted 
too close together. It is almost impossible to realize, 
as one looks at the thrifty little elm sapling, how much 
space the tree will take when it is full grown. It is 
better to allow it plenty of room even if one has to 
fill in the gaps with a temporary tree or two for quick 
results. 

The farm home setting should have what the artist 
ealls ‘‘balance’’—that is, a similar mass of foliage on 
each side. But this does not mean that one must plant 
trees or groups of trees exactly alike at the right and 
left of the house, though this is sometimes done. A 
very large tree at one side can be balanced by a group 
of smaller trees upon the other; or a small slender tree, 


\ 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 67 


by a porch planting of shrubs and vines; or a heavy 
windbreak on one side by a scattered group of trees on 
the other; or a woodlot in the background to the left 
may make it desirable to place most of the lawn plant- 
ing on the right. The idea is that if the mass of green- 
ery in the picture, to the left of the house and to the 
right, could be put upon the seales, one would not 
greatly outweigh the other. This is a very simple prin- 
ciple. But whatever the plan, there should be many 
trees about a country home. It is true that wrong 
things can be done with trees—but nothing that is half 
so bad as doing without them altogether. 

But the trees are merely the framework of the picture 
that must be filled in with shrubs and vines. Many a 
country home gives an unpleasant impression because 
of the bareness of its foundations. It seems to be just 
on the point of getting up to walk off when it should 
look as if it were going to stay there permanently. In 
fact, the most charming houses look as if they had ‘‘ just 
gerown’’ into their surroundings and are so well adapted 
to the place where they are one cannot think of them in 
any other setting. One way to accomplish this is to 
hide the foundation of the house with hardy shrubs. 
Many native bushes are excellent for foundation plant- 
ing. The mountain laurel and the rhododendron are 
often used in West Virginia, with tall ferns in between, 
to give the house a graceful setting. In the middle west 
the buckberry is used in this way, and nearly every lo- 
eality has some hardy low shrub suitable for screening 
the foundation. The bushes should always be young 
and thrifty when set out and given plenty of rich soil 


68 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


in which to grow. They should not be set in a straight 
line but with seeming carelessness, some near the house, 
others out two or three feet so that the line of green 
will be uneven. 

In very shady places the foundation can be covered 
with English ivy, the ends of the vines being clipped 
off occasionally if it is not desired that they run up 
the sides of the house. One farm woman covered the 
foundation of her house by setting up a two-foot wire 
fence and covering it with honeysuckle vines. When 
the vines became too exuberant they were clipped back 
with garden shears. And another farm woman, who 
lacked a railing to her porch, stretched a similar strip 
of heavy wire between the posts and trained honeysuckle 
vines into a green growing porch railing. With honey- 
suckle framing the upper part of the porch as well, it 
made a very beautiful effect. Among the hardy plants 
to be bought from the florist for foundation planting 
are the white funkia or day lily, spirea Van Houttei, 
the Japanese barberry, and the hydrangeas. The ob- 
jection is sometimes made that foundation plantings will 
make the house damp, but this is not borne out by ex- 
perience. A proper planting will, in fact, tend to keep 
the house walls dry by absorbing the moisture from the 
soil. 

If there are few trees about the house, vines on the 
porches are a real necessity. Again one can eall upon 
the woods and fields for one’s favorite wild vine of the 
neighborhood. Bittersweet is a good porch vine and so 
is the trumpet vine, though both are rather heavy. The 
florist can provide many good climbers. Rambler roses 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 69 


are easily grown but are apt to look untidy before the 
end of the summer. There are many other climbing 
roses suitable for porches which are vigorous and hardy. 
One of my own favorites for a lighter effect is the fra- 
grant clematis pamculata, or virgin’s bower, which 
blooms in August and is a pleasing vine all through the 
growing season. 

Shrubs and small trees may border the front lawn 
and again native plants are desirable. If the soil is 
acid, mountain laurel and rhododendron can be used in 
sections where it is native. Some farmers question the 
use of plants poisonous to stock, but stock-raisers in 
West Virginia who have always had laurel in their door- 
yards, assure me there is little danger of poisoning, since 
the animals will not touch the laurel shoots unless they 
are driven by extreme hunger. Nothing makes a more 
beautiful combination than clumps of native dogwood 
intermingled with redbud, with an under-planting of 
laurel and azaleas. In spring it presents a picture that 
is a joy to every country person’s heart. 

If shrubs are ordered from a florist, care must be 
taken that they fit properly into a country picture. 
Fancy plants of all kinds, odd-shaped ones, and those 
with vari-colored leaves very seldom do. But the spi- 
reas, lilacs, syringas, japonicas, altheas, bush honey- 
suckles and some others are quite at home in any 
setting. Along the shrubbery or in the grass, flowering 
bulbs may be planted. At my own farm home I have 
the edges of the lawn and under the trees planted 
with old-fashioned yellow daffodils or ‘‘ Easter flowers’’ 
in great quantities and they are very beautiful in 


70 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


spring. They also stray carelessly across the lawn. 
Daffodil, narcissus and crocus bulbs are particularly 
good for such use because their leaves are not conspicu- 
ous and they bloom and die down before the grass must 
be cut. 

Of course on any country place the beautifying of 
the yard means a constant struggle with the farm ani- 
mals, with the farmer’s careless habits of leaving farm 
machinery about, and with the chickens. Unfor- 
tunately, many of the dooryard shrubs are most 
eatable, and the calves and sheep seem to prefer them 
to the finest grass. Yet there are in every locality cer- 
tain vines and shrubs, often the thorny ones, which 
will make a fair growth even in the pasture field where 
the cattle are grazing every day. And such a field is a 
good place to seek for yard plantings if there are likely 
to be many calves and horses about. Small trees can 
be protected from breaking by a heavy wire guard, and 
the chickens can be kept away from shrubbery plant- 
ings by a guard of brushwood until the earth is firm 
enough to discourage scratching. Flowers and tender 
plants which are easily destroyed should be grown in the 
garden, protected by a good fence. 

The problem of farm machinery in the yard is not 
so serious in farming communities as it was some years 
ago. The modern farmer has learned that proper shel- 
ter for his machines will pay for the extra trouble and 
expense, and that a ‘‘poor-folks’’ appearance of his home 
place will mark him as a poor farmer in the eyes of his 
neighbors. The Grange has always advocated the im- 
portance of a good-looking home and in some communi- 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 71 


ties the local Grange sets an annual clean-up day on 
which everyone undertakes to improve his home sur- 
roundings. In fact some of the women proudly tell me 
that in their communities one can tell just by looking 
at the farm homes, which ones shelter Grangers and 
which do not. 

The fact is that the development of a beautiful set- 
ting for the farm home is often one of the best invest- 
ments that the farmer can make. If he ever wishes to 
sell his home, it adds greatly to its value. It gives the 
whole family a new sense of dignity—as if they lived 
upon an estate instead of on a mere patch of land— 
and a feeling that they must live up to their surround- 
ings. This is particularly important for the farm chil- 
dren to whom farm life often seems hateful because it 
is full of hard work and lacking in the beautiful things 
which they long for. But if they can understand that 
country life has its own beauty and dignity they will 
not feel so strong an impulse to leave it. They will 
learn in childhood to appreciate the trees and flowers 
which they help to care for and to take a real delight in 
country living. 


THE VEGETABLE GARDEN 


The home vegetable garden on American farms is 
sometimes the woman’s province, sometimes the man’s, 
but always the home-maker is greatly interested in the 
growing of the vegetables with which she is to feed the 
family. Good vegetable gardening is a complete science 
in itself, as each kind of vegetable has its own needs 
and its own enemies, and the writer cannot in a brief 


(2 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


space make more than a few general suggestions. The 
Department of Agriculture has prepared helpful bulle- 
tins on almost every phase of home and market garden- 
ing, and the wise farm woman makes a study of those 
which apply to the vegetables of the home garden and 
to the local soil conditions. A few of these bulletins 
are listed in the Farm Woman’s Bookshelf in the back 
of this book. 

The old-time vegetable garden was laid out in small 
plots with cross walks, with the gooseberry bushes and 
other small fruits scattered about at random, and could 
scarcely be cultivated except with the spade and other 
hand tools. But the modern farmer has developed a 
much more efficient system. He now lays out his garden 
in long rows which can be plowed and cultivated almost 
entirely with horsepower. The permanent garden which 
contains the small fruits and berries, the winter onions, 
rhubarb, asparagus and other perennial vegetables is 
set off to itself where a careless hired man will not plow 
into it when he turns the garden. Those vegetables 
which mature earliest are planted together so that the 
rows can be planted again for a later crop. And those 
which are to remain in the ground until late are planted 
at one side so that most of the garden space can be 
plowed up and sowed to rye in September for a winter 
mulch crop. The roots of the rye spread through the 
soil and form a network of fibrous material which, when 
the ground is plowed up in the spring, quickly decays 
and forms new plant food for the garden crops to feed 
on. The rye is plowed under when it is only two or 
three inches high in the spring. If a cover crop is not 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 73 


used, the ground is usually mulched with manure dur- 
ing the winter, or if the soil is a heavy clay, it can be 
plowed up and left lying in a rough state over winter. 
With these modern methods, much of the heaviest work 
of the garden is eliminated, and a plentiful supply of 
vegetables for the family can be grown. 

So important is the vegetable garden to the farm 
family that in the recent slump in farm prices, it has 
often been the saving factor. Different authorities have 
computed its value in different ways, but every farm 
woman knows, from what she has heard of city retail 
prices for vegetables, that the products provided for 
her family by her home garden are equivalent to a very 
great deal of money. As to the size of the garden, the 
farm women tell me that they plan to have it large 
enough to provide enough vegetables even in a bad year. 
In a good year they have plenty and to spare, with a 
cellar full of canned or stored vegetables to keep for the 
winter. 

The selection of varieties of vegetables for the home 
garden is very important, as different varieties fre- 
quently differ greatly in palatability. In general, the 
varieties of vegetables which are popular with the 
market gardener are not the best for the home garden, 
because they have been developed more for their ship- 
ping qualities than for their flavor. Nearly always they 
are harder and more fibrous than some of the other 
varieties, and produce the whole crop at one time in- 
stead of covering a longer season, as is desirable for the 
home garden. For this reason, it is wise to select varie- 
ties carefully and experiment until one is found which is 


14 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


a vigorous grower, pleasing to the palate, and suited to 
the needs of the family. 

Some farm families do not realize the best from their 
garden because they plant too few kinds of vegetables. 
Even to a country appetite, a vegetable served nearly 
every day during its season becomes tiresome. Aspara- 
gus, salsify, kohl rabi, brussels sprouts, okra, egg plant, 
endive, Swiss chard, Chinese cabbage, and many other 
vegetables which are excellent food are almost unknown 
to some farm families, though they could raise them 
with as little trouble as they raise beans and cabbage. 
One’s appetite for vegetables is usually acquired—many 
children will scarcely eat them at all unless they are 
forced to—so a new vegetable may not appeal to the 
palate at the first taste. But if it is served and eaten 
regularly, it will usually be liked by all the family, and 
the addition to the variety of food will be a help to 
the housewife in planning the meals. Some families 
regularly try one new vegetable each year, planting a 
small plot of a good variety and trying to learn to like 
it prepared in different ways. If the family enjoys it, 
it takes its place in the general garden and a new kind 
of vegetable is tried the next year. 

The recent discoveries concerning vitamines have 
emphasized the importance of leaf vegetables and car- 
rots in the daily diet. Country people generally did 
not need to be told about this for they had all observed 
the vitalizing powers of ‘‘greens’’ of every kind in the 
spring. But, now that we know more definitely the 
part that the leaf vegetables play in our nutrition, we 
are keeping up their use through the summer and as 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 75 


far into the winter as possible. Certain varieties of 
spinach and kale will furnish greens until late in the 
fall and will remain in the ground all winter with a 
little protection, for a very early spring crop. And 
some families have found that vigorous plants of endive, 
Swiss chard, rhubarb and other leafy plants can be dug 
up, with considerable soil about their roots and set on 
the cellar floor, where they will furnish an nccasional 
‘‘mess of greens’’ for the winter. 

It is said that the French, who are experts at pre- 
paring good things for the table, have learned the art 
of using many kinds of vegetables before they are 
mature and so secure a more delicate flavor. The farm 
woman can use this art to vary the food for her family 
from the abounding plenty of the farm garden. Many 
of the vegetables can be planted thickly and later 
thinned out as they are used for the table. The very 
young leaves of all the leaf vegetables are much better 
in flavor than the fully developed ones; tiny beets 
cooked with their tender leaves make a delicious dish in 
early spring; and half-grown beans served in a white 
sauce are even better than the full-grown vegetable. 

The farm garden often becomes a source of Income 
to the farmer’s wife, particularly if she enjoys outdoor 
work, as with very little extra expense she can develop 
some specialty for which there is a local market. The 
ordinary vegetables in their season are seldom profitable 
in a small way, the best success being attained with the 
unusual things or with very early or late crops. One 
farm woman made fifty dollars on very early cabbage 
for which she bought plants started in the South. A 


16 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


little greenhouse, if greenhouses are not common in 
that neighborhood, will often give the woman the start 
of her neighbors and a chance at the high-priced early 
market, or she can make money from tomato, cabbage 
and other plants by selling them in the neighborhood. 
And sometimes a very late garden, with corn, peas, and 
string beans, planted in the late summer will bring in 
money if one does not meet an early frost. An Iowa 
farm woman writes me: ‘‘I find there is a good market 
for any early vegetable, but have found slicing cucum- 
bers and early tomatoes much the easiest to raise, 
gather and sell. Early cabbage is good but one does 
not get the return from a dozen early cabbage plants 
that the same number of tomatoes or cucumbers would 
bring. Real early potatoes are good also, but require 
more work and a larger patch of ground. My favorite 
market crop is asparagus. It is easy to sell and re- 
quires very little work to prepare for market. I have 
raised strawberries also, and while they are profitable, 
I have not found them a royal road to wealth by any 
means. They must have more care and are subject to 
weather conditions that can be morely easily overcome 
on the other crops.”’ 

A big asparagus bed, as the farm woman suggests, is 
a money-making project in some neighborhoods, es- 
pecially if there are city people near who have grown to 
be fond of it. A good variety should be secured—the 
Washington, blight-resisting varieties developed by the 
Department of Agriculture are among the best—and 
every precaution taken to insure a good yield. In the 
spring when the shoots begin to appear, they are cut off 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 77 


just below the ground, bunched and tied, and delivered 
to the customers. 

Other farm women specialize on pickles and catsup 
and set apart a section of the garden for growing cu- 
cumbers and other vegetables for that purpose. Still 
others find that the small fruits are more profitable and 
not too exacting on a woman’s time and energy. But 
whatever is undertaken in this way, it is always a side 
issue. The chief purpose of the farm garden is the 
furnishing of a plentiful supply of health-giving vege- 
tables for the family all the year round. 

Because of the rush of farm work in the spring when 
the home garden is apt to be neglected, it is wise for the 
woman on the farm to have as much as possible done in 
the fall. After the first killing frost, the vines and 
plants should be pulled up and burned to destroy any 
insect pests upon them, the bean poles and tomato stakes 
picked up and put away—and perhaps new ones made 
for the next season’s crop—the permanent garden put 
in shape for the winter, and the regular garden plowed, 
or given its mulch of manure. During the winter the 
garden can be planned, changes to be made ean be drawn 
out on paper and the seeds for new varieties chosen 
carefully. Then when Spring comes, with its eall to 
planting in the fields and its few good days when every 
minute is precious, the home garden can be attended to 
properly in the least possible amount of time. 


THE FARM FLOWER GARDEN 


One of the strongest characteristics of the American 
country woman is her love of beauty, and this love is 


78 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


best expressed in her delight in flowers and beautiful 
plants. Even under the hardest conditions she con- 
trives somehow to have a flower in a pot or a little bed 
of bright blossoms in a corner of the yard. She rightly 
feels that flowers ‘‘pay for their keep’’ because they are 
an inspiration and a means of getting away, in spirit 
at least, from her daily toil. They are often the one 
luxury of the farm home. 

But even in her love for flowers the farm woman has 
to consider how much time and strength she ean afford 
to spend, and make sure that the ends justify the work 
it takes to reach them. It may well be that,, looking 
over the gardens of some of her neighbors, she will de- 
cide that the energy expended in caring for many potted 
plants in the house in the winter, managing a pit, a hot- 
bed and a cold-frame, giving up valuable hours when the 
work of the farm is most pressing, and coddling tender 
plants which often cause as much disappointment as 
pleasure, might better be used in some other direction. 
Indeed I have known some farm women who, it seemed 
to me, paid much too high a price for the beauty and in- 
spiration of their flowers. 

But even if one has little time or energy, she need 
not deny herself the beauty of flowers altogether. Re- 
turning travelers from England and France tell of their 
delight in the cottage gardens over there, in which the 
farm workers produce a glowing mass of color with per- 
haps a half hour of labor in the evening after their long 
day in the fields. And in our own country, there are 
many lovely farm gardens which require very little work 
—though they are not nearly so numerous as I should 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 19 


like to see them. Every farm home needs its garden 
with something blooming all the growing season. And 
if it is planned wisely it will be a rest and recreation 
and add much to the beauty and joy of our American 
country life. 

The farm flower garden may well be a permanent 
garden, which will grow into greater beauty from year 
to year, and consist of plants which will endure a econ- 
siderable amount of neglect. Personally, I do not care 
much for the garden of annuals, brilliant as it is. It 
gives a bright blaze of color for a time, and it serves a 
good purpose on the rented farm or in the early days 
of the permanent garden, but when it is gone, it is all 
over. One must begin again the next year exactly where 
one started the year before. And if something inter- 
feres with its planting in the spring the garden plot lies 
an unsightly weed-patch for a whole season. It is bet- 
ter to build toward some future beauty, season after sea- 
son, and to know that, however much one may have to 
neglect them, kindly nature is developing the plants 
day by day. So the ideal garden is the hardy gar- 
den. It is a permanent investment in beauty and color, 
with infinite possibilities of harmonious effects. For- 
tunately, the very wealthy people of the United States 
have become much interested in the beautiful Huropean 
gardens, so the best floriculturists of the country have 
been devoting their attention to the development of 
hardy flowers. Many delightful new forms have been 
found and it is now easy to get expert advice upon any 
phase of hardy gardening. Helpful lists of flowers for 
various locations are prepared by the seedsmen and some 


80 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


of the catalogues of hardy plants give suggestions for 
their proper cultivation. There are also many good 
books on perennial flower culture, a few of which are 
listed for the Farm Woman’s Bookshelf. 

The flower garden must have its own special plot. 
If it adjoins the vegetable garden, it should be set off 
from it by a fence or large shrubbery. Otherwise some 
careless plowman is likely to destroy the roots when pre- 
paring the ground for vegetables. It should he next 
the yard, not far from the kitchen door, so that the 
housekeeper can spend a few minutes with her flowers 
while a cake is baking or the potatoes are cooking. 
Even a few minutes each day of rest and attention to the 
growing plants will mean much both to the woman and 
the flowers. If the garden can be seen from the road, 
so much the better, for it is one of the chief pleasures 
of the gardener to make the world brighter for others. 
It should be fenced securely from the pigs and the 
chickens. If the fence is unsightly, it can be made beau- 
tiful by training rambler roses, wild honeysuckle or 
other vines upon it, taking care, however, not to obscure 
the view of the flowers from the windows of the house. 

Since many of the hardy flowers will do well in mod- 
erate shade, it 1s often possible to have a satisfactory 
garden on ground of little value for. raising vegetables. 
But of course it must be taken into account that flower 
roots and tree roots cannot feed on the same food at 
the same time. One of the pleasantest corners of my 
own garden is tucked away under a great black-jack 
tree where it gets very little direct sunshine. It was 
once a part of the vegetable garden and given up be- 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 81 


cause nothing would grow there. Now it is a real joy. 
In the deepest shade are wild ferns and early spring 
flowers and the beautiful Solomon’s seal. Then there 
are masses of old-fashioned phlox, day-lilies, peonies, 
mallows, and eardinal flowers, all of which do well in 
that location. It is better, however, to have a part of 
the garden plot in strong sunlight so that the sun- 
loving plants can be added for variety. 

The garden plot may be laid off very simply. Fancy- 
shaped beds and winding walks and hedges are no 
longer considered good taste in the little garden. For 
a small rectangular garden plot a straight grass or 
pebbled path down the middle with a wide border on 
each side, is the simplest form. The borders may be 
from four to twelve feet wide, as one can step between 
the clumps of flowers when working with them. The 
path may be arched with roses and lead to a restful 
bench at the end of the garden or to a vine-covered 
summer-house. A square garden may have a wide 
border all round and a central plot of flowers. But it 
is sometimes interesting to vary the plan by reserving 
a side walk for a special grouping of flowers. For in- 
stanee, a border of blue flowers is very beautiful, or 
blue and white, or all yellow. And a farm woman tells 
me that she particularly enjoys a cozy nook in her 
garden, hemmed in by vines and shrubs so that it is out 
of sight of the house and the rest of the farm. There 
she can rest on a comfortable bench and feel far away 
from her usual activities. There she can think things 
out and ‘‘find herself,’’ and then go back to her work 
feeling that she has had a real vacation. 


82 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


NATIVE FLOWERS 


The lack of ready money does not make a flower 
garden impossible, for flowers do not necessarily cost 
money. In fact, many of our hardy garden favorites 
are only the native flowers of our woods and fields 
given good soil and cultivation. I have already spoken 
of the shady corner full of ferns from the woods, and 
the shy spring flowers. But there are more showy blos- 
soms, too, which can be found on the farm. Nothing 
could be more attractive than thick clumps of cardinal 
flowers, which grow wild in shady places in many 
parts of the country. Their color is very beautiful, they 
are especially hospitable to butterflies and always have 
the fluttering bright wings about them. Another bril- 
lant flower of the fields is the butterfly-weed, of a 
bright reddish-orange color, which grows best in a dry 
soil. Solomon’s seal has inconspicuous blossoms but is 
always a delight because of its shiny leaves and the 
supremely graceful arch of its stem. Wild larkspur is 
fine for bedding, and the wild blue chicory is beautiful 
in the morning hours. Wild white and lavender asters 
and goldenrod also respond to cultivation very well. 
Then there are all the native flowering shrubs and vines 
—so many and so varied in almost every part of the 
United States that anyone can develop a garden from 
them. And one of their best features is that they will 
almost take care of themselves if they are given proper 
conditions and suitable soil. The building up of such 
a collection adds a new joy to all one’s walks and drives, 
and the plants themselves serve as pleasant reminders 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 83 


of many a jaunt into the woods and fields. In digging 
up wild plants, it is necessary to avoid breaking the 
roots and to keep the soil about them intact if possible. 
For this reason small plants are much better for re. 
setting than large ones. Ferns should be dug in the 
early spring before the fronds have uncurled. And it 
is best always to leave a part of the clump of wild- 
flowers in its original habitation, so that the woods will 
not lose their beauty when they flower. 

The objection raised by some farmers that the eulti- 
vation of ‘‘weeds’’ in the garden will cause them to seed 
into the fields, is not borne out in actual experience. I 
have seen them cultivated in many gardens, but I have 
known of but one instance—and that was of the common 
ox-eye daisy—of a weed spreading from a garden. A 
few species, like the poppies of Flanders fields, known 
to be a pest elsewhere, may well be avoided. But most 
of the native flowering plants never become so common 
in the fields as to become a menace to agriculture. 


BORROWED E‘LOWERS 


Not all the penniless gardener’s plants need come 
direct from nature. There are usually old gardens in 
the neighborhood, full of the old hardy favorites—and 
who is so generous as the grower of flowers? The gar- 
dener, if she is at all like the gardeners I have known, 
will be more than glad to give the beginner a plant or 
a bulb or a slip from almost everything she owns, and 
feel quite repaid by her enthusiasm. And as the new 
gardener adds some of the newer hardy varieties to her 
own collection she can have the pleasure of dividing 


84 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


those with her generous neighbor. In this way much 
of my own hardy garden was accumulated, a bulb from 
this old garden and a plant from that, until my garden 
spot is like an old-time patchwork quilt—bright with 
borrowed bits of color. And every blossom is fragrant 
with the friendship of the other gardeners in my neigh- 
borhood. I sometimes even eall the flowers by the 
names of the persons who gave them to me—much to 
the amusement of some of my city visitors. 

There is another good reason, too, for such a method 
of developing a country garden. The plants which have 
thrived under ordinary conditions in your own locality 
are so thoroughly acclimated that they are almost sure 
to grow vigorously. Next to the native plants, they will 
grow and bloom in spite of neglect, and this makes them 
most desirable for the farm garden. Some of them are 
almost everlasting. Many flowers in my own garden 
were planted by my grandfather seventy years ago, and 
I have heard of peonies, day-lilies, and German irises 
that had lived for more than a hundred years and yet 
bloomed with unabated vigor. The only fault I find 
with these old-time flowers is that too many of them 
bloom in the early spring. But by planning carefully 
for the new varieties to fill in the gaps in the blooming 
season, one can soon manage a succession of bloom. 


THe DoLUAR-A-YEAR GARDEN 


I have known some charming farm gardens upon 
which the woman spent but a dollar a year. She would 
choose a new plant or two and a few packages of seed, 
and these additions to her ‘‘borrowed’’ garden, with seed 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 85 


she had saved from the year before, in time developed a 
display of flowers which rivalled those of far wealth- 
ier persons. Sometimes she and a neighbor together 
ordered packets of the more expensive seed and then di- 
vided them, so that each could have a few clumps of 
the new variety. Of course in beginning a hardy gar- 
den it saves much time to order two or three-year-old 
clumps so that a good effect can be secured immediately. 
But the other method, persisted in from year to year, 
will finally produce just as good results. 

In planning the garden, it is a good idea to draw a 
map of it on a large sheet of paper, marking it for deep 
shade, lighter shade and sunshine, and indicating where 
certain kinds of flowers are to be planted. The tallest 
varieties should be placed farthest from the walk, then 
those of medium height, and on down to the tiny bed- 
ding plants. Arranged in this way, one does not cut off 
the view of another. In a central bed of course the 
tallest will be in the center, the others graduating to- 
ward the walk. Yet it is not necessary to arrange them 
exactly, because the general effect needs to be rather 
informal. The flowers are scattered about together in 
good-sized clumps, all the varieties mingled into a har- 
monious grouping. Each clump of flowers when it is 
well grown will cover about eighteen inches of space, 
so this must be allowed it in the permanent bed. Peo- 
nies need three feet or more, and they should never be 
disturbed. While the hardy plants are small, the 
spaces between can be filled with annuals or flowers that 
will not be injured by resetting. 

Before ordering seeds or plants, it is wise, also, to plan 


86 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the blooming season, so that from the earliest crocus till 
the last chrysanthemum there will always be some spot 
of color along the garden walk. Most desirable of all 
are the everblooming varieties. The tufted pansies, 
with which one can border the walks and cover the 
ground under the roses, are seldom without a blossom 
from early spring till frost. The gaillardias, the yellow 
coreopsis, and the beautiful delphiniums are almost 
ever-blooming if they are rightly managed. And by 
choosing the earliest to the latest varieties of improved 
phloxes, it is possible to have them in bloom almost the 
whole season. With these as a basis, other varieties can 
be chosen which will ensure a steady succession of 
bloom from April to November. 

But before making a final choice of seeds or plants, 
it is well to note everything the seedsman says about 
them. Unless they are ‘‘very hardy,’’ they probably 
will not do well in a country garden. Many plants 
listed as hardy will not survive the winter without pro- 
tection, and it is this protecting and coddling of the 
flowers that the farm woman must avoid. The seeds- 
man’s location must be taken into account, too, for what 
is hardy in his garden may not be in yours if you live 
a little farther north or at a higher altitude. In my 
Own experience I have found the seedsmen rather too 
optimistic about their plants surviving the winter un- 
protected. The other gardeners in your neighborhood 
will probably give you helpful advice upon this subject. 
In general it is safer to order the old favorites than those 
recently developed, as there is no certainty that the 
new hybrids which the seedsman features will do well 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 87 


under ordinary conditions. But the old stand-bys 
which are carried from year to year in his pages are 
almost sure to be successful. 


PROPAGATION 


The seeds of hardy plants can be sown either in the 
permanent beds or in special seed beds, from which they 
can be transplanted. Some of the seeds, especially the 
phloxes, are exceedingly slow in germinating and in the 
spring the tiny plants from seeds sown the summer be- 
fore are late in coming up, and care must be taken 
that the plot is not disturbed too soon. After digging 
up a perennial plot and sowing it in annuals, I have 
had the perennials begin to show themselves here and 
there a month or so later. The seeds need not be 
planted in the early spring if other work is pressing. 
I have planted seeds in a fairly shady garden plot at 
any time from June till late September and, except in 
an unusual drought, with very good success. To make 
success more sure, a part of the packet of seeds can be 
planted at one time, the rest at another. When the 
weather is dry a piece of coffee-sacking spread over the 
bed will help to keep it moist around the seeds. But it 
must be removed as soon as the plants begin to appear. 

As seeds of hardy flowers seldom produce plants large 
enough to bloom the first year, one needs some beds 
of annuals for the new garden. Even after the garden 
is well established, it is wise to have a small seed-bed of 
annuals each year for transplanting into any gaps in 
the border where the hardy flowers have been winter- 


a 


88 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


killed. I have used calliopsis, phlox Drummondii, petu- 
nias, verbenas, portulaca, cosmos and asters for this 
purpose. 

Some of the more highly developed hardy flowers do 
not always come true from the seed, so it is better to buy 
plants instead. This is especially true of the phloxes, 
which are apt to revert to the original magenta 
color even in the well-established varieties. When a 
good variety is found, it can be increased by dividing 
the roots, by planting the seed or by stem cuttings. A 
small cutting bed is not much trouble if it can be kept 
safe from the chickens, near the kitchen door in a well- 
drained spot. The ground is prepared by mixing in a 
good deal of sand and providing drainage if necessary. 
The bed is kept moist by giving it a little water every 
day. As the cuttings can be planted very close to- 
gether, a small space will make considerable additions to 
the garden in the course of the growing season. It is 
interesting to try a variety of one’s best plants—mak- 
ing sure always that the cutting has at least one bud or 
joint well covered, and removing any leaves. In a short 
time many of the cuttings will begin to put out leaves, 
showing that they are beginning to develop roots, and 
they can later be transplanted with some of the sandy 
soil about them, to the permanent garden. I have prop- 
agated fine chrysanthemums, phloxes, roses and many 
of the flowering shrubs in this way. 

An even easier method for rooting the harder cuttings 
is the pioneer fashion of pushing the cutting deep into 
a potato and then planting it in the garden. If the 
tuber tries to grow, the shoots are broken off at the 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 89 


ground. The rotting potato keeps the cutting moist 
enough, even in dry weather, for it to start roots. It 
is the time-honored custom in most farm gardens to 
cover new rose plants the first winter with an old glass 
fruit jar, but even this protection is not necessary for 
the ramblers and other vigorous growers if they are 
started early in the season. 

As flowers are all heavy feeders, it is desirable to pre- 
pare a permanent bed carefully by mixing well-rotted 
stable manure with the soil to a depth of two feet or 
more. If the soil is very hard, old leaves, rotten straw, 
sand, or moderate amounts of eoal ashes will help to 
render it porous enough for the plant roots to penetrate. 
After the plants are well established, all that is neces- 
sary is a light mulch of old manure in the fall, which 
is dug in around the roots in the spring. The work 
of a hardy garden can be done at almost any time one 
can find time for it. Even the transplanting can be 
done in summer if care is taken to prevent the roots 
from drying out and to tramp the earth down well about 
them in their new home. If one has doubts about moy- 
ing a plant in hot weather, it can be cut in two, and 
part of it left in the original soil to propagate from if 
the other should die. Very little watering of hardy 
plants, except when they are transplanted, is necessary 
or desirable. 

The following list of flowers by no means includes all 
the varieties that have proved beautiful and dependable 
in the farm gardens I have known, but perhaps it will 
be suggestive to the amateur gardener. 

To grow from seed: Hibiscus or mallow, clove pinks, 


90 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


sweet williams, perennial pansies, Shasta daisies, golden 
glow, delphiniums, hollyhocks, gaillardias, coreopsis, 
columbines, gas plant or dictamnus, sea lavender, and 
oriental poppies. Plants or bulbs to be bought or “‘bor- 
rowed’’: Narcissus, tulip, lily of the valley, day lilies, 
summer-blooming lilies, phloxes, roses, flowering shrubs, 
German iris, Japanese iris, chrysanthemums. Very few 
of the hybrid tea roses will stand much neglect—as I 
have learned from experience. The ramblers, however, 
and other sturdy climbing roses can take care of them- 
selves and so can some of the old-fashioned bush roses 
which our grandmothers loved. Some of the best hy- 
brid perpetuals also grow with very little care in the 
average farm garden. One of my own favorites is the 
pink sweet-briar rose which, though its blooming sea- 
son is short, gives a delightful spicy odor from its 
leaves all summer and is gay with bright-colored hips 
in the fall. It grows wild in some sections of the United 
States but can be ordered from the seedsmen. Other 
wild roses are also worth trying for the farm garden, 
as they nearly all respond well to cultivation. 

Many of the old New England flower gardens are 
made a source of income as well as of pleasure for the 
gardener, by the sale of flowers, seeds, bulbs, and plants. 
This is not often possible at the farm home, but at least 
the gardener can add to her pleasures by calling upon 
her garden for gifts to her friends. Artistic bunches 
of straw flowers, sea lavender, or ornamental grasses 
make excellent gifts to brighten some friend’s home in 
winter. The lover of flowers will always appreciate 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 91 


gifts of choice seeds, put up in dainty ribboned pack- 
ages. House plants can be propagated in the cutting- 
bed for small thrifty plants to give away at Christmas 
time. Bulbs can be dug in the fall and planted in pots 
to be in bloom for Christmas giving. Sachets of laven- 
der are always appreciated by a housewife and bunches 
of carefully marked herbs for seasoning. In fact, the 
gardener will find that her garden gifts are much ap- 
preciated. For the best gift of all is that chosen with 
a loving thought of the recipient, and that carries with 
it something of the giver’s personality and of the things 
which she loves. 

It is to be hoped that the time will soon come when 
every farmhouse in the United States will have its hardy 
garden, bright with color all the season through. It will 
show that a new spirit is abroad—a spirit of pervading 
loveliness which will do much to brighten our American 
eountry life. And it will give an opportunity for re- 
laxation and inspiration to the country family during 
the rush of the season’s work, when it is impossible for 
them to seek recreation elsewhere. For, as every coun- 
try person knows, there is nowhere like a pleasant gar- 
den for quiet thoughts. It is a place of rest and peace. 
And the creation of so much beauty brings one very 
close to the Divine. As Katherine Tynan, the poet, says 
of the gardener: 


The wonders of the skies for him 
Shall open, nor his eyes be dim, 
And seeing the first leaf unfold, 
He shall praise God a hundredfold. 


92 


THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Yea, he shall learn from his employ 
How God turns mourning into joy, 
And from earth’s graves calls up at last 
His flowers when all the winter’s past. 


CHAPTER V 


THE HOME BUSINESS 


points,’’ and ‘‘Organization is the art of getting 
someone else to do your work,’’ are two defini- 
tions which should be taken very seriously to heart by 
the farm housekeeper. Henry Ford has said many 
times that there is more waste motion and misplaced 
energy on the farm than anywhere else in the world. 
He was speaking particularly of the man’s side of 
the work. Butif he knew the conditions of the woman’s 
work indoors in an ill-arranged old farmhouse he would 
undoubtedly be even more emphatic. There is a tre- 
mendous amount of lost motion in every farm home. 
But to one who knows the farm conditions, it does 
not seem surprising. For sheer executive ability there 
is no task more exacting than the organization of the 
work and play and recreation of the farm home. I dare 
say there are occasions when even Henry Ford him- 
self would not know which way to turn. So many kinds 
of work are going on at once, much of it by young and 
careless hands which have to be watched at every mo- 
ment, weather conditions make so much difference that 
work can scareely be planned from one day to another, 


a cow gets sick, or worms attack the garden at exactly 
93 


a | ee is the shortest distance between two 


94 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the wrong moment, somebody gets hurt, and one thing 
interferes with another until it seems impossible to 
make plans that can be carried out in practice. And yet 
planning the day’s work ahead is absolutely necessary 
if one is to avoid continual confusion and over-work. 
One of the first things for the housekeeper to find 
out is how much work she is actually doing. Miss [lena 
M. Bailey of the Bureau of Home Economics of the 
United States Department of Agriculture has recently 
made a chart by which a woman can check up the 
amount of time spent at various tasks in the house and 
out. And for her own enlightenment it is important for 
the housekeeper to keep a record for a week or two at 
least, so that she can see just where all the time goes. 
The plan is very simple. On a sheet of paper, two 
circles are drawn for the clock face of the morning and 
afternoon of one day, with numbers as on the face of 
the clock. Or a series of the charts already prepared 
will be sent on application from the Department of 
Agriculture. On these clock-faces the different tasks 
are written in or marked with colored crayons to show 
the amount of time spent. For instance, if crayons are 
used, the blue can represent time given to preparing 
food and clearing away after meals. Red can represent 
the time used to put the house in order, yellow the milk 
work and buttermaking, green the time spent in the 
garden, etc. Unusual tasks can be marked with a black 
pencil and the name written in. Such a time chart 
takes but a few minutes to keep each day, yet at the 
end of the week one can gain from it a general idea ‘of 
the time and energy given to the several kinds of work. 


THE HOME BUSINESS 95 


Sometimes the mere thought of a time schedule will 
help to shorten the work, as the looking forward to some 
new amusement often does. One woman told me that 
she discovered after she got her radio set that she could 
easily cut an hour from her work after supper, in order 
to listen in on the radio at half-past seven. Little tasks 
which had previously been left till after the meal were 
attended to while the supper was cooking, much of the 
cleaning up was done and the children hurried through 
their evening chores, so that she was able to leave the 
kitchen with everything finished a whole hour earlier 
than had been her former custom. And many a farm 
family has discovered in the past few years that much 
ef the work can be speeded up considerably if one has 
an evening automobile ride in prospect. As a child I 
used to add interest and vim to the task of washing 
dishes by seeing how quickly I could get them done, 
and then trying to better my own record, as an athlete 
does when training for a race. They were done well, 
too, for any carelessness from haste I looked upon as 
not ‘‘sporting,’’ and a broken dish was considered a 
great point against the record. Soon I learned to clear 
the table, wash the dishes and put them away with un- 
usual deftness, and in about one-third of the time I had 
formerly spent dawdling over the task. So, once tried 
with the time-chart, keeping up with the daily schedule 
becomes a sort of game—unless one foolishly overdoes 
it—and a real help to shortening the working hours in 
the home. 

Very often when a woman sees her work before her 
on the time-chart, she is surprised at the amount given 


96 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


to some of the simplest tasks. Because she has the 
habit of doing them in a certain way, she has never 
thought how much time they were consuming. Very 
few women have so good a system of clearing the table 
and washing the dishes that the time cannot be cut 
considerably by the use of a wheeled cart, good equip- 
ment for dishwashing and a more convenient placing of 
utensils. And much of the time usually wasted while 
the meal is cooking can be put to good use in wash- 
ing up and putting away utensils already soiled. The 
saving of ten minutes is not so important, but it is also 
a saving of energy and gives just that much more 
chance to the housekeeper to do the things that she 
wants to do. 

One housewife learned from her time chart that 
she used an average of more than six hours on rou- 
tine tasks such as dishwashing, cleaning and food prep- 
aration, with but fifteen minutes spent on dressing and 
relaxation for herself. And she had no time at all for 
eomradeship with her family of five children, and only 
forty-five minutes a day with her family at the table. 
It was very easy for her to see that she was keeping a 
house instead of a home. 

So the story which the time chart tells warns the 
housekeeper where to improve her methods and where 
to spend what money she has for equipment. Often a 
ereat deal of time is lost in the course of the day’s work 
by the use of unsatisfactory tools—like using a fork, 
for instance, instead of an egg-beater—merely because 
the worker has been careless about replacing worn-out 
equipment. And again a loss of time is caused by the 


THE HOME BUSINESS 97 


fact that the work things are arranged ‘‘back-handed’’ 
instead of in the way one naturally does the tasks, 
calling for a continual lifting and readjustment. Un- 
necessarily heavy pots and kettles waste a lot of time, 
especially if the children do a part of the work. And 
the inconvenient, poorly equipped kitchen is to the 
farm girl what the endless chores are to the farm boy 
—the chief impetus away from the farm and into the 
city job. 

In general the most thought and most money for 
equipment should be expended upon two kinds of tasks: 
1. Those which have to be performed every day or 
several times a day; 2. Those which are likely to cause 
overstrain or ill-health from other causes. In the first 
group are included the preparing of meals, clearing 
away and dishwashing, and the daily cleaning. For this 
reason, the farm women rightly place first in equipment 
the good range and oil stove and a running water sys- 
tem, as money spent there will pay larger dividends 
than anywhere else. The weekly washing seems most 
likely to cause ill-health by over-strain or exposure, so 
that good laundry equipment is also a prime necessity. 

But even good equipment may still leave the house- 
wife’s work day far too long. Her next step is to so 
organize that some of the tasks are passed over to others. 
One farm woman writes me that her family uses the 
‘‘earry system’’ in clearing the table. When the meal 
is finished, each person, visitors included, picks up his 
own dishes and carries them to the kitchen, thus sav- 
ing her many steps. Sometimes the men of the family 
can give a few minutes’ ‘‘lift’’ with the heavier tasks 


98 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


after the noon meal, if the housekeeper has planned it 
for them. They can also take a little time off to help 
with the heavy work of wash-day. 

Then the children can be taught to help with many 
of the lighter tasks, though the woman who drives her- 
self is often inclined to think they are too much trouble. 
She is impatient and discourages them in their efforts 
by continual faultfinding. Of course the first time one 
teaches a young girl to bake a cake, it takes much more 
time and trouble than to bake it oneself. But it is a 
very shortsighted woman who does not train her chil- 
dren so that she can secure a permanent release from 
some of the lighter tasks. And the children will enjoy 
it if they can work along pleasantly with the mother to 
keep them company. 

When I asked one farm woman what would be the 
most help to a young housekeeper in organizing her 
home work she laughed and said, ‘‘ Well, I think that 
a real serious illness would do her more good than any- 
thing else.’’ And I laughed, too, at this funny sugges- 
tion. Then she told me of her own experience. She 
came to her farm home as a bride, full of life and en- 
thusiasm. None of the tasks seemed too hard for her. 
When she prepared a meal she flitted from kitchen to 
dining-room and back again, carrying a thing or two at 
a time, and was up and down the eellar stairs many 
times a day. When the older women criticized her 
wasteful methods she resented it, for she was so strong 
and well she saw no reason for saving steps. Yet she 
did feel abused because she never had any time for 
social pleasures as she had had before she married. 


THE HOME BUSINESS 99 


About that time she came down with a sudden illness. 
A serious operation was necessary, and after it months 
of recuperation. As the hired help was inefficient she 
took up her household duties again as soon as she could. 
But now, instead of wasting her energy at every turn, 
she must save it. She had the kitchen cabinet and the 
work table moved so close to the oil-stove she could reach 
them without moving from the high stool upon which she 
sat when cooking. Food when cooked was shoved across 
the narrow work table and served on a table behind a 
screen on the farther side. And everything about every 
little task was studied with a view to saving steps and 
energy. She saved up the heavier tasks for her hus- 
band to do in a short time morning and evening, and she 
left undone a hundred things that she had formerly 
considered necessary. She was continually surprised to 
see how smoothly she could run her household with so 
little strength. 

And as she grew stronger she had the good sense to 
keep most of her invalid’s program. ‘‘I just thought,’’ 
she said, ‘‘that if a sick woman could run a house at 
all, a well woman ought to be able to run it with one 
hand.’’ So she refused to return to a full time sched- 
ule, and as her strength returned, she found she had 
time every day for her garden and for social pleasures. 
‘*T discovered I had been abused,’’ she laughed, ‘‘but 
that I had done most of the abusing myself, by my care- 
less methods of work.’’ 

Of course no one would eare to invite an attack of 
appendicitis for the sake of the time schedule, but it 
might be worth while to imagine oneself ill, just to see 


100 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


how little one could do if necessary. To ask, ‘‘What 
would I do if I had only half my strength? And what 
would I leave undone?’’ The answer would require a 
thinking into things, and then some courage to make the 
changes that the thinking suggests. One is not lazy just 
because she gives much thought to making life easier 
for herself. Indeed she is often mentally lazy when 
she plods through the old routine without doing any 
thinking. 

The settled housekeeper often fails to make changes 
to better methods and better tools because she does not 
give them a chance to prove themselves. When she tries 
a new way it goes awkwardly at first and she says, ‘‘If 
you call that saving time, I don’t. It is harder than the 
old way.’’ Of course it is. Any new habit is hard to 
establish, but if persisted in, it may make a great sav- 
ing in the course of a year. Another says: ‘‘I can’t 
be worrying about every step I take. It makes my work 
just that much harder.’’ But she forgets that the new 
way will soon become as much second nature to her as 
was the other. A pianist struggles to learn the tech- 
nique of the keyboard, but sooner or later she can turn 
it over to habit, and play without thinking at all of 
where her fingers are going. So the housekeeper must 
first master the technique of her work, then she will be 
free to think about other things. For there are just 
two ways to be efficient and happy in the daily round 
of monotonous tasks. One is to give the job real signif- 
icanece to you by thinking of its scientific side—or per- 
haps its aspect of service, which is its religious side. 
The other way is to learn to do the job so well that you 


THE HOME BUSINESS 101 


ean do it as you think of something else, as when you 
button your shoes or brush your hair in the morning. 
It all comes to this in the work of the farm home— 
at least according to the farm women who have been 
writing to me—the woman who works herself to death 
has herself to blame. If she persists in laying out for 
herself every day twenty-four hours’ work to be done 
in a possible sixteen, she will always be worried and 
flurried, her family will be unhappy, from morning till 
night unfinished tasks will scream at her from every 
side, and drive her to an untimely grave. And the 
only thing one ean do is to write as her epitaph—as was 
written for a self-driven housekeeper of old New 
England—‘‘She hath done what she could n’t!’’ 


FooD AND CLEANLINESS 


Three square meals a day are the rule in farm families 
in America, and to the home-maker they seem to come 
extremely close together. She has so little time to 
think or to plan the meals according to scientific stand- 
ards of diet that it is little wonder that she some- 
times gives up in despair and puts on the table what- 
ever she thinks will ‘‘fill them up’’ with the least 
* amount of work and trouble. And indeed most farm 
families, with their plentiful supplies of many kinds of 
food, have a fairly well-balanced diet. But the home: 
maker wishes to know definitely whether she is feeding 
her family on a properly balanced ration which will help 
them to make the most of their strength in the work 
of the farm day. 


102 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


She knows that foods are different and that a proper 
diet would contain all the different kinds, but it is diffi- 
cult to know how much of each should be used. Some 
foods are to furnish fuel to the body or energy to work 
with, while some build up the tissues and help the body 
to grow. Naturally grown people need more of the 
first kind and children more of the second kind of food. 

One of the simplest classifications of foods divides 
them into five groups: Group I. Vegetables and fruits. 
Group II. Milk, meat, and meat substitutes. Group 
III. Grains, bread and breakfast cereals. Group IV. 
Sugars, syrups, jellies, candy, ete. Group V. Butter, 
cream, fat meats and other greasy foods. 

The first two groups are body-building foods, and so 
are especially needed by children; the last two are en- 
ergy or fuel foods needed by hard workers. And the 
third group is both, it is the ‘‘staff of life,’’ and so is 
the chief group in most of our feeding plans for animals 
or for people. What the housekeeper needs to do is to 
make sure that no one of the groups is neglected when 
she plans her meals from day to day. More detailed in- 
formation about the proportions of food is to be found 
in Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1813 prepared by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture. 

The chief problem in securing a balanced ration for 
the country table is to have a sufficient supply of fruits 
and vegetables for the winter. But scientific methods 
of canning, and of storing vegetables and fruits render 
it possible to have a varied diet most of the year. Some 
of the extension workers have formulated four rules for 


THE HOME BUSINESS 103 


the use of fruits and vegetables for the average family. 
1. Vegetables (other than potatoes and dried beans) 
twice a day. 2. Fruits twice a day. 38. Greens twice 
a week. 4. Oranges or tomatoes twice a week. To 
keep to such a program of food in the winter, the 
country cellar will need to be well stocked with vege- 
tables, apples, canned fruit, greens and tomatoes. 

The cooking of vegetables is important, also. Gener- 
ally speaking, they should be cooked as little as possible 
to render them soft and palatable. Many people cook 
cabbage, for instance, until all its natural flavor is lost 
and then season it with meat. Usually the more one 
cooks cabbage, the worse it is for the cabbage—and the 
health of the person who eats it. The best way to serve 
it is with a simple cream dressing as slaw. When 
cooked, it is more digestible when served as soon as it 
is transparent and easily pierced with a fork. The same 
principle applies to nearly all vegetables, for they can 
all be ‘‘cooked to death’’ so far as their natural flavor is 
concerned. 

The housewife’s daily burden has been lightened 
somewhat in recent years by the fashion of simpler 
meals. It is no longer considered proper on most farms 
to serve half a dozen different vegetables at a meal, 
even if there is company. ‘Two or three are chosen and 
the members of the family or guests are expected to eat 
the same things. The old fashion of serving everything 
at once, not only made a great deal of extra work for 
the housekeeper but also developed ‘‘finicky’’ habits of 
eating in children of the family. And by serving 


104 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


fewer foods at a time and varying them from day to 
day, the family does not tire so quickly of the garden 
vegetables in their season. 

The cost of food for the farm family may vary con- 
siderably, according to the amount of food raised on 
the farm. Some families, by means of carefully 
planned gardens and orchards and a home meat supply, 
need to buy very little of their food. Others, for the 
saving of labor and time, buy a great deal. Usually 
the food produced on the farm is much cheaper, even 
if there is a sale for it in the town, because the family 
gets it at its first cost of production. For instance, the 
farmer’s own wheat or corn, ground at the local mill, 
and served as graham or corn-meal mush as a breakfast 
cereal, is very much cheaper than the prepared cereals 
on which he has to pay transportation charges, cost of 
manufacturing, cost of box, and all the middlemen’s 
charges. In our own family, a favorite dish in the 
winter is whole wheat grains, which, after careful 
cleaning and washing, are cooked slowly on the back 
of the stove on ironing day, and served with cream as 
a breakfast cereal. Whole wheat has a delicious flavor 
which the broken grain does not have, and it is cer- 
tainly inexpensive as compared with other breakfast 
cereals. Since cooking fat, whether bought or produced 
on the farm, is one of the most expensive of foods, it is 
wise to avoid frying food. And the home economics 
experts tell us that boiling and baking are better cook- 
ine methods for most foods, anyway. 

A recipe file is a real help in cooking the more un- 
usual dishes, because it saves thumbing through a big 


THE HOME BUSINESS 105 


cook-book every time one wants to do a little extra 
baking or other cooking. The favorite recipes are 
copied on cards which have a hole in the top, and the 
one needed can be slipped out and hung on a nail where 
it can be seen while one is doing the mixing. My own 
memory for proportions in recipes is so poor that I keep 
several cards on the nail all the time, shifting to the top 
the one I happen to be needing at the moment. File 
eards of one’s favorite recipes can also serve as gifts 
to one’s friends. I know a woman who sends them each 
year, with a bit of holly ribbon tied through the hole, 
instead of the usual Christmas cards. 

The matter of cleanliness—clean house, clean clothes, 
clean hands, ete.—is another serious problem, and its 
solution takes a great deal of the housekeeper’s time and 
energy in the course of the year. One of the greatest 
helps to cleaning is a good supply of water, so most 
farm women rank the running water system for the 
house as one of the most desirable conveniences. With 
the water coming in without effort and carrying out the 
dirt with it, the daily cleaning tasks are lightened in- 
deed. Another step toward a clean house is to keep 
the dirt out as far as possible. For this reason, when 
there is a running water system, some housekeepers 
have an outside faucet near the door next the garden. 
There they wash and cut off the tops of the vegetables 
so that the dirt and litter is not carried into the kitchen 
at all. A stove-wood box which opens to the outside 
also saves a great deal of litter in the kitchen. And the 
farm home wash-room near the kitchen has become a 
real institution. It might be called the ‘‘cleanliness 


106 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


room’’ instead, for there the men can go to wash up 
before meals and to leave their dirty boots, all the 
family can brush their clothes, polish their shoes, and 
do all the other dirty tasks of the day’s cleaning away 
from the living rooms of the family. 

In the daily cleaning of the house, a good carpet 
sweeper picks up the surface dirt from the rugs and 
earpets with comparatively little dust. If electricity is 
available a vacuum cleaner is a great boon because it 
cleans the floor coverings so thoroughly that the constant 
stirring of dust by the children’s feet is minimized. 
Light rugs which can be taken out of doors for clean- 
ing, are also a help. 

For the weekly laundry, the best possible equipment 
is desirable. Most housekeepers find it convenient to 
have a regular laundry room or a corner of the wash 
room fitted with cupboards for keeping the necessary 
soap powders and other supplies at hand. If there isa 
drainage system to carry off waste water from the house, 
funnel-top pipes can be run to the tubs, holes bored in 
the tubs and rubber stoppers inserted, so that the water 
need not be lifted after it has been used. If the tubs 
and ironing boards are of exactly the proper height for 
the worker, it will save much waste of energy. One 
farm woman says that her best help in ironing ig a spe- 
cial ironing board about twice the usual width, on which 
she irons sheets, pillow cases and other flat things. A 
high stool on which to set the basket of clothes and a 
rack on which to spread the freshly ironed pieces with- 
out stepping away from the board will save a few steps 
for each garment. If there is electricity in the house, 


THE HOME BUSINESS 107 


a good electric iron makes a greater saving in time and 
energy than almost any other household convenience. 
A considerable saving in ironing, too, can be made by 
the proper choice of under-garments. Knitted under- 
wear for all the family needs only to be pulled in shape 
on the line to be ready for wearing, and some of the 
children’s dresss can be made of material which does 
not need ironing. Every detail of the work if planned 
carefully can be improved. Some women report that 
they have cut the time required for the weekly laundry 
almost in half by the use of better equipment and better 
methods. 


Tue Homrm BooKKEEPING 


In pioneer days the farm family had few accounts to 
keep with the outside world, as almost everything pro- 
duced was consumed on the farm, but now the house- 
hold account is an important part of the home business 
and a great aid to economy. As John Ruskin once 
said, ‘‘Economy no more means saving money than it 
means spending money; it means the administration of a 
house; its stewardship; spending or saving, whether 
money or time, or anything else, to the best possible 
advantage.’’ 

The home account book need not be elaborate,—it 
may be only a ten-cent notebook ruled with bookkeep- 
ing columns. One farm woman says that she keeps a 
day-book and a ledger. The little daybook she keeps in 
her apron pocket where she can make a memorandum of 
buying and selling and money paid out for working ex- 


108 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


penses—items which are set down in the evening in the 
ledger. She began keeping a record of her poultry, also, 
and her cows and calves, and other parts of her work. 
And in a short time she discovered many changes were 
desirable. The three cows were not paying for their 
keep, so she sold them and bought one high grade ani- 
mal. Her poultry record led her to get rid of many 
of the older hens which had been unproductive. And 
she added to her hives of bees, which the account showed 
had been paying her well, and gave up trying to raise 
turkeys which had failed to pay expenses. And the ac- 
count helped her to keep in mind the best places to buy 
satisfactory articles for the home and the most durable 
clothing. 

The account book may also show how to save work. 
It may indicate that certain articles of clothing can be 
bought ready made as cheaply as they can be made at 
home. That buying certain fruits to can does not pay, 
and that soap-making is not worth the time and trouble. 
It may show that the farm woman could buy a washing 
machine with what she pays the laundress; could buy 
part of her bread ready baked without much increase 
in expense; could send the cream to the creamery and 
buy back the butter, and in other ways cut her daily 
work. In other words, it should show which parts of 
her work are really profitable and which are not. 

The account will show, too, the comparative amounts 
of money being spent for food, clothing, repairs, amuse- 
ments, ete., so that the homemaker can observe an un- 
balanced condition. In recent studies made by the De- 
partment of Agriculture of the expenditures of farm 


4 


THE HOME BUSINESS | 109 


families, the outlay for clothing runs about 15% of 
the total, for food about 45%, for health (doctor’s 
bills, ete.,) 5%, and home operating expenses, 13%. 
One farm woman who has been keeping such accounts 
says: ‘‘This year I have a page for recreation, too. I 
want to make sure that we are getting the pleasure that 
we are entitled to in proportion to our income. I ’m 
planning to keep a list of half days off for picnics and 
outings to satisfy myself that farmers really do have 
vacations. We don’t have two weeks off with pay, but 
we do have a lot of pleasures that we sometimes forget.’’ 

The household account leads the way to the making 
of the home budget, which is a plan for spending the 
income for the coming months. With the story of the 
past year’s spending at hand, one can plan how much 
will probably be needed for food, how much for cloth- 
ing, and so on, and on what one must economize most 
to keep the balance even. Someone has said a budget 
is ‘‘a method of worrying before you spend instead of 
after.’? And the keeper of the budget is not apt to be 
swept off her feet whenever a glib-tongued salesman 
comes along. She has in mind the amount of money 
she will probably have to spend, and definite things 
which she wants to spend it for. So she goes shopping 
with a well-set purpose, and a definite proportion in 
mind. We have all known families that spent. so much 
for clothes they had little left for food, and others that 
bought a three thousand dollar automobile and then 
“could n’t afford’’ a water system in the house. An 
automobile is nearly always a good investment for a 
farm family because it can be used for many purposes, 


110 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


both for business and pleasure, but before buying it, 
one should consider it in relation to other family needs 
which may be quite as important. In my own ex- 
perience on the farm, I have noticed that buying a new 
piece of equipment inevitably means going without 
something else that is also greatly needed. It is not a 
question of whether a convenience is desirable, but 
whether it is more desirable than something else. And 
ideas of desirability will vary greatly. Sometimes a 
farm woman asks me, ‘‘Which would you buy with the 
five hundred dollars we made from the farm this year— 
a water system or an automobile?’’ It is a question 
which I never answer, because no one can answer it for 
her. A water system will make her work lighter—but 
perhaps she would rather work harder and be able to 
get away from the farm for rides and visits. Or if 
the family decides upon the water system instead of the 
automobile, it may be that so much time will be re- 
leased for profitable work that it will in time provide the 
automobile also. In any ease, it is a balancing of ac- 
counts, which should be done carefully before the deci- 
sion is made. 


Farm Accounts 


Many farm women manage the accounts for the whole 
farm, keeping the books, making the inventory, and foot- 
ing up the farm profits for the year. They say that they 
ean be a greater help to the overworked husband in this 
way than in any other. The Department of Agriculture 
has been working on systems of farm accounts which are 


THE HOME BUSINESS 111 


simple and easy to keep, and nearly all the state colleges 
sell farm account books of an approved type at cost. As 
the account books are arranged, they show the amount of 
labor income on the farm, the size of the farm business, 
the crop yields, and the return from livestock, as well 
as the amount of expense of different items. From this 
data the farmer can discover the weak and the strong 
points of the farm. Livestock growers particularly are 
appreciating the importance of producing a properly 
balaneed livestock ration on the farm instead of pur- 
chasing feeds and of keeping a proper balance between 
the livestock and the field crops. And farmers gener- 
ally are impressed with the need for more efficient farm 
management to combat the high costs of production and 
marketing prevailing at present. A well-kept account 
book is often the most profitable work of the farm. It 
saves misunderstandings at the elevator and the shipping 
station, keeps a record of bills paid, and of money owed 
to the farmer, and if a lawsuit is necessary, it becomes 
the best evidence of the farmer’s business dealings. In 
many of the States the extension workers have organized 
cost-comparison conferences at which the farmers dis- 
cuss their farm records. Discussions on costs are con- 
fined to particular crops, of course, so that no one need 
report his whole farm business. 

The farm inventory or annual list of property is not 
difficult to keep up after it is once begun and it is of 
practical value in many ways. If progress is being 
made it accurately gages the extent of it and if not, 
it emphasizes the fact. So much of the income of the 
farm is immediately put back into the business that 


112 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


often the farmer is discouraged and feels he is making 
nothing, when an inventory would show him better off 
than he thought. It shows additions to equipment, 
growth in livestock, gains in land value brought by good 
farming methods, ete. And in connection with the in- 
ventory, a computation should be made of the value to 
the family of the food, fuel, water, and use of the house, 
so that the farm business as it stands can be accurately 
judged. It is only by such bookkeeping with the farm 
that any farmer can tell whether he is a success or a 
failure. 


Tue WoMAN’s Business CAREER 


Several of the farm women have asked me to speak 
strongly against the separate career for the woman on 
the farm. They say that she already has more than 
she can do if she keeps up with the housework and the 
children, and that work with the poultry, the garden, 
ete., should never be undertaken. Of course, they are 
right in saying that the farm woman has quite as much 
as she can do, without a business eareer of her own. 
But when one considers that in the past few years it has 
often been the woman’s poultry work or other activity 
which has saved the farm mortgage from foreclosure, 
that her separate income has brought happiness and 
comfort to the home, and sent her children through eol- 
lege—one cannot entirely condemn it. It is a matter 
which rests with the farm woman herself and with her 
circumstances. A woman who loves the farm will work 
herself to death before she will see it go, and she will 


THE HOME BUSINESS 1138 


do anything to gain advantages for her family. And 
if conditions force her to work for her living on the 
farm in addition to her household duties, it is deplor- 
able, but at least she is no worse off than many a city 
woman. And she has the advantage of the city woman 
in that she can be near her family while she is doing it. 
Of course, no woman should overwork or neglect the 
finer sides of life unless it is absolutely necessary; it is 
always bad business in the long run, and she is very fool- 
ish if a mere ambition to ‘‘get ahead’’ drives her to 
neglect rest and recreation and her personal develop- 
ment. That kind of getting ahead is, in fact, the surest 
way to go backward. 

But especially after the children are large enough to 
manage many of the household tasks, the farm woman 
may take a real delight in a special business of her 
own. It is an inspiring fad as well as a source of in- 
come, and a source of interest which keeps her alert 
and in touch with others doing the same kind of work. 
When it is possible, the work should be something one 
particularly likes to do and for which there is a fair 
market in the neighborhood or in a convenient city. 
Some women delight in vegetable growing, flower grow- 
ing, fruit growing, ginseng growing, and other outdoor 
work. Others specialize on chickens, ducks, geese, or 
turkeys. Others who are interested in cooking put up 
jellies, jams, pickles, and canned fruits. Others make 
butter and cottage cheese. And still others prefer such 
indoor tasks as the making of ‘‘hooked’’ rugs, baskets, 
and the weaving of carpets or counterpanes. What- 
ever the task is, if it appeals to her, is fairly profit- 


114 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


able and not too much for her strength, it may be 
a real pleasure. But she should always strive to be- 
come an expert in her specialty. Commonplace prod- 
ucts in such small quantities seldom make a good profit. 
So she must appeal to the high-class trade from which 
she can exact a high-class price. Her pickles must be 
of such a superior quality that her customers will return 
eager for more. Her rugs and coverlets must have 
really artistic coloring and design. Her garden and 
fruit products must be more carefully graded and more 
attractively displayed, than any others on the market. 
In order to do this she must continually study her 
specialty in books and papers and the government bul- 
letins and attend lectures by specialists so that no de- 
tail will escape her. And thus she becomes alert and 
open-minded and probably gets more out of life than 
she would without her specialty. 

The handling of the money from the woman’s special 
business is important. Too often it goes into the general 
household fund and by the end of the year neither she 
nor her husband knows how much she has made. The 
farmer may think that the woman’s work does not 
amount to much, when he would be greatly surprised if 
he saw the proceeds. If possible all money from her 
special business should be kept by itself in a bank ac- 
count of her own so that she can have a record of money 
drawn from it. As with the general farm accounting 
the woman’s account with her specialty will show how 
efficient her methods have been, or how inefficient, and 
give her suggestions for changing to better methods or 


THE HOME BUSINESS 115 


to a different kind of work. Besides that, the sight of 
money actually coming in and being deposited in the 
bank is a great stimulant to endeavor—it is very 
hard to do one’s best without seeing the money returns 
for the labor—and the gpecialty can be made 
to yield greater returns as its money value becomes 
apparent. 

The handling of the bank account will also be an 
excellent training in business. Every woman should 
know how to open a bank account, how to write a check 
and fill out the stub which is her own record of the 
transaction, how to make out the deposit slip, to clip 
coupons, to buy bonds, to open a savings account, and 
all the other details of the handling of money. It may 
seem a simple matter but, as in other things, proficiency 
comes only with practice. And it is surprising how 
many women, suddenly thrown upon their own resources 
by the illness or death of their husbands, are entirely 
helpless in such matters. The woman needs also to de- 
cide upon her business signature, so that she will not 
sign her letters and checks sometimes Sarah Smith, 
sometimes Mrs. John S. Smith, and sometimes S. M. 
Smith, as careless women do. The old way of the house- 
keeper keeping her money in the cracked teapot is go- 
ing out of fashion. Money about the house is too great 
a temptation to thieves. A bank account is a protection 
to one’s money, and a convenience in paying bills, in 
keeping track of income and expenses, and in giving the 
depositor a claim to financial advice from the bank 
officers, 


116 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


THe Farm NAME 


The naming of the farm is very desirable from a 
business standpoint. If it is the policy of the farmer 
and his wife to sell a high class of products they should 
get the credit for it, and the only way for the products 
to become known outside a very small circle is to give 
the farm a name. It is good advertising. If the name 
is registered, no one else can use it under the law and 
it gives the products protection. Several States have 
laws which authorize the registration of farm names 
with the state authorities. One of the chief hindrances 
to the selling of products direct from the farm to the 
city customer is the city huckster who sells stale vegeta- 
bles and fruits from the wholesale houses, yet pretends 
to be a farmer. So the city women learn to be wary of 
the ‘‘farmer’’ who comes to their doors. But if a man 
has a farm name which can be established with his 
customers, and always sells a high quality product, he 
will be protected from these impostors. Usually the 
farm name is descriptive—The Cedars, The Terrace, 
Maplewood, Broadlawn, Meadow Brook, etc., but any 
name which is distinctive is desirable. The farm name 
and address ean be used upon a neat letterhead for busi- 
ness letters and upon stickers or stencils for marking 
packages of farm products. I+ is desirable, of course, 
when such a trademark is used, to make it stand for 
produce of the best quality. Some farm women grade all 
produce going to market and mark only the highest 
quality with the farm name in order to get the highest 


THE HOME BUSINESS 117 


price upon it. Products of poorer quality are sold un- 
marked at whatever they will bring. 


MARKETING 


A great deal of the difficulty of marketing farm and 
garden products direct from producer to consumer is 
eaused by the fact that neither quite understands the 
other’s point of view. But if the producer of a spe- 
cialized product is to succeed she must learn the city 
woman’s attitude toward foods. For instance, it is 
often hard for the farm woman, who knows all about 
growing things and is used to seeing vegetables as they 
come from the patch, to realize that the city woman de- 
mands that they be graded in quality and size. For the 
city woman lives in a machine-made world. To her even 
food products must look as if they were all run in the 
same mold, and be an even quality, or she feels there is 
something wrong with them. She is used to paying a 
high price for food, but even if she gets a farm product 
at half the retail rate, she feels that a bad strawberry in 
the bottom of the box is a deadly insult. So the wise 
country woman in putting up her products makes them 
look as nearly machine-made as possible, keeping all the 
bunches of asparagus the same size and tied in the same 
way, closely grading the berries_and vegetables in size 
and quality, and making sure that the outside of the 
package is a sure indication of the inside. Thus she can 
build up a high-class trade because her product has an 
unvarying quality. 

In selling products direct from the garden, many 


118 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


country people feel that the average city woman should 
be willing to pay a higher price because of the superior 
freshness of their vegetables, but she is not. There are 
a few discerning city women who will pay more for 
fresh products, but they are decidedly in the minority. 
The average woman is so used to vegetables and fruits 
handled by all the middlemen that she does not find 
their staleness objectionable, provided, of course, that 
they are not much wilted or decayed. She has lost that 
fineness of perception of flavor which the country per- 
son has. One farm woman told me an amusing story 
of her experience with a city friend. The country 
family had been delighting in a new variety of sweet- 
corn with a delicious flavor, but so fleeting that the chil- 
dren vied with each other in seeing how quickly they 
could get it from the garden to the dining-table. If it 
were kept over night its flavor was quite gone. So the 
country woman, going on a visit to the city, broke a 
basketful of the fragrant ears at the last moment, to 
give her city friend a taste of how delicious corn could 
be, and when she arrived urged her to put it in the pot 
at once. But the city hostess had other plans for din- 
ner—and three days later the corn appeared on the 
table, the city family exclaiming at its delightful 
freshness. 

And the city woman always expects to get farm prod- 
ucts at a lower price from the producer than from the 
retail grocer. The ease with which she can call up the 
grocer and make one order for the day’s supplies counts 
a great deal with her, and she feels she should pay less 
if she gets her vegetables and fruits from a roadside 


THE HOME BUSINESS 119 


store or even from the farmer’s market. Many farm 
women have found that they must sell their products 
about five per cent. less than the retail price if they are 
to secure a good trade—this in addition to giving a 
highly standardized product. It often seems unfair to 
them, and perhaps it is unfair, but it is the natural ef- 
fect of the machine-made city world. 

The city woman seldom buys in large quantities ex- 
eept for a few staple supplies. Each day is a new be- 
ginning with her, and her food needs are taken care of 
by the morning grocery order or the morning trip to the 
market. So country women who have worked up a 
trade in baskets of mixed vegetables suitable to last the 
city family a week have found their city consumers pre- 
ferring a smaller basket twice a week, chiefly because 
the city housewife is not used to planning her meals a 
whole week ahead. Because of these differences in the 
point of view, the woman on the farm who undertakes 
to sell the farm products will do well to talk frequently 
with her customers and to put up her wares in exactly 
the form which they demand, even though she may have 
to charge more for extra work involved in better grad- 
ing and packing. 


Tue Hetp PROBLEM 


A farm woman, when asked about conveniences 
needed for the farm home, said, ‘‘I think the greatest 
help would be a new hired man.’’ And almost any one 
living in the country will quite agree with her. In the 
old days the hired man was usually the son of a neigh- 


120 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


bor, who could be taken into the family as an equal, and 
who not infrequently married the farmer’s daughter 
and established a home of his own. But now the neigh- 
bor’s sons are off to the city and to well-paying jobs and 
in their places the farmer must take what he can get. 
It is a serious problem because of the demand for in- 
telligence in laborers brought about by the increasing 
use of machinery and the need of expert help in produc- 
ing and handling perishable products; yet the supply, 
at any price which the farmer can afford to pay, grows 
lower and lower in standards of living and intelligence. 
The present-day hired man at the family table has be- 
come a real menace to the standards of the children of 
the farm family, and many farm women are at their 
wits’ end to know what to do about it. They feel that 
the solution of this problem would do more than any- 
thing else to emancipate the farm women. 

Conditions vary greatly in different parts of the coun- 
try, but one of the best plans seems to be to so manage 
the farm work that continual employment can be given 
two or three men all the year round. Then if com- 
fortable houses and fair wages are provided, married 
men can be hired who will be more likely to remain 
than the unmarried workers, and who will not have to 
be with the farm children continually. Such workers 
usually cost more than the ‘‘picked up’’ worker for the 
summer, but their efficiency in handling the tools and 
stock is so much greater that they may be more profit- 
able in the long run. In some communities the farmers 
have combined to build a house for their unmarried 
hired men, where the workers from several farms ean 


—— ee 


ee Ee en ae 


ee re ee ee on Ve 





THE HOME BUSINESS 121 


live apart from the farm families. The workers usually 
prefer this because they have more companionship. 
Foreign workers especially enjoy the society of those 
of their own nationality. Sometimes the migrant 
farm hand can board at the home of one of the per- 
manent tenants. The best possible help should be 
secured, as the cheapest help on the farm is seldom 
profitable. The farmer cannot be with his workers at 
every moment and the lazy worker or the one with no 
initiative can easily cut his work to half what an 
efficient man would do. In any case, the women insist 
that it is necessary for the integrity of the farm home 
and the avoidance of overwork for the woman that the 
hired help be taken care of outside the home. 

Hired help for the housework is becoming almost 
unknown on the farms of America and yet it is as 
necessary that the woman have assistance with the 
heaviest tasks while the children are little, as for the 
man to have help on the farm. Almost anything else 
should be given up for the sake of good help, when the 
help is needed. It is far better for the floors to be bare 
and the clothing ragged than that the children should 
lose a happy and healthy mother as their companion in 
after years. If regular help is out of the question, a 
worker by the day will lift some of the heaviest burdens, 
others can be lightened by better equipment, and per- 
haps still others can be taken care of by community 
effort. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 


tf OUNTRY life is a delight to me the year around. 
My life is so full. I am a very busy woman. 


I don’t see how any one could think of life 
on the farm as dull. There are always new interests, 
new and delightful surprises. JI walk in the woods, I 
climb a hill, and get a different view of my home. I 
find a hidden spring. Then I follow a little stream 
around a hill. It is so beautiful. There is a vine and 
I plan to dig it up and plant it by the porch, and as it 
is always green it will give me joy all the year. The 
baby chicks, the shy little guineas, all the young grow- 
ing things are new. Why, even my family are new to 
me when they come in after a day’s absence in the field 
or at school. The school children broadcast the local 
news. There are lively and exciting happenings to be 
related, and their account is so vivid and clear I almost 
feel that I have seen the things they are relating,’’ an 
Oklahoma farm woman writes me, and she has well 
expressed the thoughts of the country woman. City 
people are often surprised at the number of alert and 
well-groomed women at Grange picnics and other 
farmer gatherings, and remark about their fresh youth- 


fulness. Few of them show their age as the city woman 
122 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 123 


does, in spite of all the beauty parlors ean do for her, 
because they live simple and natural lives, and are 
seldom bored with anything. 

The best cosmetic in the world is an active mind that 
is always finding something new and looking for some- 
thing pleasant just around the corner. With such a 
woman indeed ‘‘ Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale 
her infinite variety,’’ and even hard work cannot keep 
her down. A farm woman writes: ‘‘I have a work 
basket on the table by our radio receiving set. I always 
lay out work for the radio concerts. All the stockings 
are darned while I listen in. It is surprising how easy 
it is to mend and sew while listening to a concert, and 
it is more surprising to see the amount of sewing that 
has been accomplished in the concert hour.’’? And she 
reads everything. A Massachusetts woman says: ‘‘We 
like fashion books and articles on proper table etiquette, 
too. Because we live on a farm doesn’t mean that we 
must necessarily confine our reading to chickens and 
fertilizer.’’ In the old days, the mother often seemed to 
think that all her hopes were in her children, and 
that their good times and success or failure in life were 
all that mattered. Now she is beginning to see that her 
hopes for her children are not enough. They are to be 
trained and educated, of course, but still there are things 
which she ean do that her children cannot. She has 
always carried a large part of the burden of the rural 
ehurch upon her shoulders, and now the community 
work must often stand or fall according to the amount 
of time and energy she has to give to it. She has her 
own life to live every day of the year. 


124 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


She feels a new independence toward the man of the 
family. In pioneer times the man was often the auto- 
crat of the home, deciding from his own point of view 
every family question, and taking full responsibility for 
all its successes or its failures. The woman’s own world 
existed at all, apparently, only when he was too busy 
with outside affairs to take a hand. There were 
exceptions, to be sure, and many a vigorous pioneer 
woman “‘ruled the ranch’’ in both her own and her hus- 
band’s business; but tradition was strictly for the man 
as the head of the house, who decided matters for the 
wife as he did for the least of the children. But times 
are changing. Recently I have been reading many 
hundreds of letters from farm women in different 
periods, and it is interesting and a bit amusing, too, to 
note the change in their point of view. One large group 
of letters, for instance, was collected by the the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture in 1915. The women nearly all 
tell of the hard conditions of their lives and complain 
about the hard work imposed upon them, and the lack 
of opportunity for rest or recreation. ‘‘My husband 
looks after his horses and sees that they have proper 
rest,’’ says a typical letter of this period, ‘‘but he never 
seems to think his wife needs a rest.’’ It is the man who 
is to blame. She is his responsibility. And she, un- 
consciously perhaps, places herself on a level with the 
dumb brutes on the farm whose welfare must be looked 
after, because they are incapable of looking after them- 
selves. 

But later letters strike a different note. One farm 
woman writes emphatically, ‘‘I want to tell the world 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 125 


that if any farm woman is overworked to-day, 1¢ as her 
own fault!’?’ And hundreds of others voice the same 
sentiment in as many different phrases. Indeed, in only 
two or three letters among the thousands direct from the 
farm women of to-day do they lay the blame for their 
hard work upon their husbands. 

I wonder sometimes in reading these recent letters 
where the old-time work-horse woman on the farm has 
gone. She seems as extinct as the dodo. Did she die 
of overwork? Did she move to the city in the recent 
exodus from the country places? Has she forgotten 
how to write letters voicing her complaints? Or has 
she, perchance, reformed, kicked over the traces, upset 
the wagon of tradition, taken the bit in her teeth and 
gone off on her own gait? Certainly the farm woman 
who has been writing me lately has been given her 
head—and uses it—and her complaints against her hus- 
band are few and far between. Even when conditions 
are at their worst, it is the grim necessity of poverty, 
community conditions, or economic conditions, and not 
the man who is to blame. And though a work-horse will 
sometimes go on till it drops dead under the lash, no 
self-respecting farm woman does nowadays. She as- 
sumes the responsibility for the effects of her overwork. 

It is probable that much of this change has been 
brought about by education. Village high schools have 
become so numerous in nearly all of the States that most 
of the farm women have at least a high school education. 
A great many of them have been to college, and a sur- 
prising number have had superior training and the ad- 
vantages of European travel. And all the women on 


126 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the farm read more widely than they used to, and keep 
up with general economic problems, so their under- 
standing of the farm problem has grown considerably. 
The husband is no more a hard taskmaster to a helpless 
mate, but a man dealing with conditions as they are, as 
best he can. A farm woman in 1910 wrote of a mortgage 
on the farm, ‘‘I don’t see what a mortgage is for, any- 
way, or why we have to have one.’’ To her, apparently, 
a mortgage was a bogey ever ready to get her if she 
did n’t watch out, and always keeping her from having 
the things she wanted. But the present day farm 
woman knows all about mortgages, and notes and interest 
and probable returns upon investments in land, and all 
the rest. She may hate the mortgage just as much be- 
cause of its economic pressure, but at least she under- 
stands that it is not going to bite. In fact, in many 
cases the woman has been responsible for the mortgage 
because she has seen how an investment in tile drainage, 
orchards, barns, or some other farm project would pay 
big returns, and she is just as much interested in mak- 
ing sacrifices to pay it as her husband is. 

The new woman on the farm is breaking with tra- 
dition in her own home work also. In years past most 
things were done because her mother and her grand- 
mother did them in that way. Every custom of the 
family life was sacred whether it had any sense in it 
or not. So sometimes the really over-worked woman of 
the past was indeed ‘‘monst’ous busy’’ as Uncle Remus 
says of the Hard-headed Woman, but chiefly because 
“she done sech a heap er things she ain’t got no business 
to do.’’ That is, she was putting in much of her energy 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 127 


upon things that her family would have been just as well 
off without, or perhaps even better off without. We 
may grow sentimental over the old-time cookery that 
“‘mother used to make,’’ but if a woman on a modern 
farm were to serve pies three meals a day, as was often 
done in old times, she would rightly consider herself 
little better than an idiot. For she has learned from 
modern domestic science that, however pleasant they 
may be to the palate, pies are not the best form of food, 
and that in her work to make them she is really doing 
her family harm instead of good. So on the modern 
farm the pie has become a Sunday treat instead of an 
every meal necessity, and the fruit in season is served 
fresh or stewed upon the table. 

Another tradition which the farm woman of to-day 
insists upon smashing is that against out-of-door work 
for women. Perhaps in this she is doing herself more 
harm than good, but at least she is doing it. Since the 
beginning in America, the self-respecting farmer has 
felt that his ‘‘women-folks’’ must not work outside. 
That was men’s work and too hard for women. Ap- 
parently he thought that the weekly washing, scrubbing, 
baking and all the rest was but child’s play in compari- 
son. But the farm woman knew better, and since she 
has begun to rearrange her life somewhat, she is seeing 
that the old system often kept her at tasks far harder 
than those out-of-doors, without any of the benefits of 
fresh air, sunlight, and pleasant surroundings. She 
is now demanding a release from some of the indoor 
drudgery by machinery or cooperative effort or hired 
help, so that at least a part of her day can be spent at 


128 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


outdoor work which is economically profitable. When 
the milk is sent to the creamery and the weekly wash to 
the codperative laundry, she can take the children with 
her and spend the morning with her chickens or her 
raspberries and really enjoy herself. This gives her an 
opportunity to train her children in the outdoor work, 
also, which in the old days she never found time for. 

The farm women insist that they do not lose caste by 
working outside, for outdoor work to one with courage 
and strength is uplifting, not degrading. Even the 
‘idle rich’’ work out of doors to the very limit of their 
endurance, riding, boating, swimming, hiking, playing 
tennis or golf, or whatever it is they ‘‘go in for’’ at the 
moment. And certainly it ought not to be reprehensible 
for a farm woman to perspire over necessary and pro- 
ductive labor, when an equal amount of perspiration 
over fashionable sports is quite the thing! At least this 
is the opinion of all the women who have written me 
about the new arrangement. Of course if the breaking 
of the old American tradition should result in the women 
working the fields regularly as the European peasant 
women do, it would be unfortunate, but the American 
farmer and his wife are too sensible and have too wide 
an opportunity at other kinds of work ever to hitch the 
woman to the plow. 


REst 


One of the findings of modern science which the farm 
woman has not taken entirely to heart, indeed she has 
had little chance to do so, is the necessity for rest periods. 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 129 


The factory owner has learned from careful experiment 
that it is an economic loss to drive his workers too hard. 
So regular rest periods are established in the factory, 
and periods for play or recreation. It is a business 
proposition. And the rule is just as applicable to house- 
work as it is to factory work. Any woman who actually 
works sixteen hours a day is undoubtedly working at a 
low rate of speed or energy. There are definite limits, 
as shown by modern science, to the working power of 
the human body. The person who works far into the 
night pays for it by being inefficient the next day. The 
body may go through the motions but the brain is dull 
and stupid. The work pushes the worker, instead of the 
brain pushing the work, and planning it efficiently. 
Indeed on the farm wherever you find blue, discouraged 
women, you will find them working late at night—and 
fit for nothing the next day. And nothing would be 
more helpful to country life than to bring the hours of 
labor down to a standard which would promote the great- 
est mental and physical efficiency in the woman on the 
farm. 

The person who merely ‘‘keeps going,’’ dragging her- 
self from one task to another because she is afraid to 
stop, is injuring herself seriously, and there is no especial 
merit in keeping busy if one is not accomplishing any- 
thing, but being a martyr to a wrong cause. And the 
busy person really misses a great deal. She tries to 
get too much out of life, she has not time to be gracious 
to others, to give a pleasant word to the children or to 
think things out for herself. Some of the most strenu- 
ous workers scarcely use their minds at all, at least not 


130 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


to think about important things and to enjoy the finer 
things of life. 

Walt Whitman once said, ‘‘I loaf and invite my soul,’’ 
and this is well worth doing. We have too much empha- 
sized work in America, I sometimes think. We work 
and work, without ever stopping to think out for our- 
selves why we are working, or whether we are working 
in the best way, or what we are working for. For, 
though work is important, there is also that better part 
‘‘which shall not be taken away.’’ Even the serving 
of meals and the keeping of the house the Saviour con- 
sidered less important. So the farm woman should stop 
occasionally from her physical exercise for spiritual ex- 
ercise, to renew her faith and her courage; to sit down 
awhile in the garden and watch the plants grow, to 
watch the sunset fade out in the evening sky, and to 
take a little walk with herself at night under the stars. 
She is a fine woman—this American country woman— 
and it is well worth her while to get acquainted with 
herself. 

Some of the farm women say that getting away from 
home, seeing other people’s homes and eating food they 
have not cooked does them more good than anything 
else in the world. No one with a reasonably active 
mind ever goes on a visit without bringing something 
worth while home with her. Even if it is only a new way 
of cooking eggs, or a new way of doing her hair, it 
varies the family life by so much. And it keeps the 
woman’s brain active and on the job for a considerable 
period afterwards. The city office worker is given a 
vacation because her employer knows that she will be 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 131 


worth more to him in the course of the year with a va- 
cation than without it. So the woman whose work keeps 
her much at home is really adding to the amount she 
can accomplish by taking time off occasionally. 


CARE OF THE PERSON 


The farmer with pure-bred stock is careful to keep 
his fine animals well cared for, not merely because of 
an impression their appearance may make upon the 
chance visitor, but also because a fine animal thrives 
better if it is given special care. And yet the woman, 
busy with many things through the day, sometimes 
neglects her personal needs, though a little attention 
given to herself might help her to carry the day’s 
load. 

One country woman tells me that she has kept young 
looking and pretty in spite of heavy work by devoting — 
half an hour to her appearance every night. She says 
she saves that time for herself as religiously as she gets 
breakfast or feeds the chickens in the morning, because 
she thinks it is just as important. First she takes a 
bath or washes her face and neck thoroughly, cleans 
her teeth with a pleasant dentifrice, brushes out her 
long hair and shakes it about for a few minutes before 
she braids it for the night. Then she bathes the tired 
feet she has been standing on all day, rubs them with 
witch-hazel and massages her feet and swollen ankles 
thoroughly, rubbing a little vaseline between the toes 
and over the corns. By the time she is through, her 
feet are glowing and rested. Next she rubs her face 


132 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


and neck with cold cream with a gentle upward motion, 
and rubs the cream thoroughly into her hands. The 
use of the greasy cream is to return to the skin the oil 
lost by exposure to wind, dust, and water during the 
day. In summer she also bathes her face in an astrin- 
gent lotion. As a final preparation for rest, she does a 
few stretching exercises to get all the ‘‘cricks’’ out of 
her body and she is ready to slip into a clean nightgown, 
say a brief prayer, and go to sleep without a care in the 
world. For it is a fact that a little leisurely attention 
to the body before going to bed is the most relaxing and 
restful thing that one ean do. 

In the morning when she must hurry out to get break- 
fast, she needs but a moment to dash cold water over her 
face and to do her hair to be ready for the day’s work. 
Some women also shake out their hair and brush it when 
they lie down for a while in the afternoon, or failing 
this, leave it hanging while they go about the poultry 
work or gather the vegetables, so that it is well aired 
and sunned every day. And a ‘‘good stretch,’’ a few 
minutes’ rest on the sitting-room sofa, and a change to 
fresh stockings and shoes are recommended as good ways 
to shake off weariness at any time in the course of the 
day’s grind. 

The greatest difficulty for the woman on the farm is 
to keep her hands in good condition, as her work brings 
her in contact with many things which hurt the skin. 
Gloves can be worn for some tasks and two or three 
pairs of loose cotton gloves should be ready for use at 
any moment. The use of dishmops and of a soapshaker 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 133 


in washing dishes saves the hands from hot water, and 
very often with a little practice a spoon or scraper can 
be used for tasks for which the hands have been used 
before. Near the kitchen sink should be kept a small 
bottle of vinegar to be used after the hands have been 
in hot water, a bottle of glycerine to soften them when 
they become rough and chapped, and a box of corn meal 
to sprinkle on with the soap when they are very dirty. 
The meal will soften them and cleanse them at the same 
time. Other good treatments are vaseline rubbed well 
into the skin after the day’s work is over, and mutton 
tallow with a little sulphur added is healing and whiten- 
ing. It is not mere vanity which leads a worker to take 
care of her hands. They are her best working tools. 
If they are neglected, they will in time become stiff and 
rough and awkward, she will lose her deft touch with 
fine china and flowers and the other dainty things about 
the house, and all her work will be done with less 
freedom. 

To be really good-looking, a woman must have well- 
eared for hair and arrange it in a becoming way. It 
is an imposition on one’s family and the general public 
to give one’s hair but ‘‘three licks and a promise,’’ and 
drag it back into a grim knot at the back of the head, 
even if one is a very busy woman. There are many 
ways of making the hair frame and soften the face be- 
comingly without taking a great deal of time in its ar- 
rangement, and she is a foolish woman indeed who — 
neglects to make the most of her crown of glory. As 
the old Roman, Ovid, said some two thousand years ago: 


134 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Let neatness be your chiefest charm 
And see your hair is well arrayed, 
One touch succeeds and one does harm, 

Not every style suits every maid. 
Choose yours and in the mirror glance 
Till you achieve true elegance. 


DREss 


The quaint and colorful peasant costumes of the Euro- 
pean nations have their charm and I dare say the women 
who wear them enjoy it, but no American country 
woman has any desire to be thus set off in a class by her- 
self by her clothes. Clothes do make a great deal of 
difference. Henry Ward Beecher said, ‘‘Clothes do not 
make the man but they make him look a lot better after 
he is made.’’ And certainly this is very much more 
apparent in the woman. The desire of the American 
country woman is to dress so much like her city sisters 
that she can mingle in the city crowds without an added 
glance in her direction, except perhaps for the vigor of 
her step, the clear brightness of her eyes and the natural 
healthful color of her complexion. 

And the only way to look exactly like the city woman is 
to wear exactly the same kind of clothes, not necessarily 
clothes as elaborate or as costly, but well-made clothes 
with the same good lines and perfect tailoring. For 
this reason many of the farm women whom I know buy 
their best clothes by mail from the shops on Fifth 
Avenue, New York, rather than from the local stores or 
the general mail-order houses which cater particularly 
to the country trade. They buy, perhaps, a simple con- 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 135 


servative suit, well tailored and cut, a dainty waist, and 
a becoming hat. Or sometimes they prefer a modish 
long coat, with a simple dark silk dress to wear under it, 
as being more generally useful. They pay more, prob- 
ably, than they would at the local stores, but if the 
clothes are well chosen they do not go out of style so 
rapidly and the consciousness of being well-dressed is 
worth a good deal. They find that one such outfit will 
serve their needs for a long time, with the addition of 
simple wash dresses which they can make themselves, 
and the occasional trip to the city has no terrors for 
them, so far as clothes are concerned. If they cannot 
afford these more expensive clothes, they choose the 
simplest suits in the local stores and add a lace-trimmed 
home-made waist for daintiness. 

With the best outfit, they wear neat black or brown 
shoes, with silk stockings for parties and the trips to 
town. Cotton stockings are more sensible for general 
country wear because they are not damaged so easily by 
briers and weeds. Indeed they are sensible enough for 
any kind of wear—but who wants to be sensible to the 
extent of wearing cotton stockings when every other 
woman is wearing silk! So the farm woman believes in 
indulging in a few, at least, of the luxuries of life, even 
though the field of her work makes her reserve them for 
the state occasions! 

The Home Demonstration agents have been arousing 
an interest in home dressmaking by teaching how to 
make individual dress forms of gummed paper strips 
upon which the farm woman can fit her own clothes. 
Though a dress form is by no means so essential in these 


136 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


days of chemise frocks as it was when every line of the 
figure was fitted, it is a help in adjusting the sleeves 
and shoulder seams, collars and other trimming. In 
fact, dress-making has become such an easy task, com- 
paratively, in this era of simple clothes that almost any 
one can make really stylish garments with the help of a 
good pattern. Even trimming has been almost done 
away with, except for collars and vests of contrasting 
material and touches of hand-work which can be done at 
home very easily. In my own experience, I have usually 
found that the attempted saving in adapting the same 
pattern to different types of clothes was not a success. 
Each pattern is cut for a certain type of material and 
a certain type of dress, and its use for other purposes 
is apt to be disappointing. Of course, many house- 
dresses can be cut from the same pattern, with vari- 
ations in trimming and color, and children’s dresses can 
be made just alike in a whole rainbow of colors for 
variety. But for important frocks, it 1s wise to choose 
carefully a pattern as nearly fitted to the material and 
the type of dress as possible, and depend upon it to give 
the garment style and fit. And the pattern should always 
be a brand-new style, which has been featured in a re- 
cent issue of the pattern magazine. The large books 
of patterns often continue to carry styles which are 
months or even years out of date, and the thoughtless 
purchaser is likely to be disappointed in the finished” 
garment. 

Another help given to the home sewing by the Demon- 
stration agents is to form local classes for instruction in 
general sewing, seam finishes, making flower trimmings, 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 137 


decorative stitches, and the making over of old clothing. 
This last is particularly important in a home where 
there are a number of small children. In other places 
the agents teach the making and trimming of hats and 
give good advice concerning the type of hat best suited 
to the individual. Sewing machine experts are brought 
into some communities to teach the women how to keep 
their machines at the highest point of efficiency. There 
are also many excellent bulletins on sewing prepared 
by the State colleges of agriculture and the Department 
of Agriculture, so that no country woman need be with- 
out the knowledge of how to make pretty and stylish 
clothes for herself and the children. 

A great deal has been written and said about how to 
choose clothes for beauty and becomingness, but except 
for a few very general principles, it does not give one 
much real assistance. Of course the large woman needs to 
choose dark colors which blend into the background, 
avoid large figures and bright-finished materials, and 
emphasize the long lines of her dress. And the very 
thin woman may indulge in many soft frills and cross- 
wise tucks, and big collars which hide the thinness of her 
chest. But aside from this, each person is a separate 
problem. ‘No one can tell her exactly what clothes she 
will enjoy, and often she does not know, herself, until 
she has tried them. One farm woman solved the prob- 
lem by keeping to similar lines in her clothes. After she 
had once found a dress that she felt her best in and 
that all her friends said was becoming, she chose the 
next one somewhat like it in general style, though per- 
haps very different in color and trimming. As the type 


138 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


of dress was really well suited to her figure, she always 
looked well wherever one saw her. 

Not less important than the dress are the accessories. 
Good-looking gloves, hat, and shoes, and a bit of real 
lace have given, many a common-place dress a real 
distinction. Fortunately even the dressier shoes can 
now be had with comfortable heels and in hats the 
woman can choose a large one or a small one as she sees 
fit. Many farm women prefer a hat with a drooping 
brim to shade the face and soften its lines, trimmed with 
a few simple flowers or feathers. But nothing is better 
with a suit or tailored coat than a trim little tailored 
hat, softened a little by the curve of the brim and fram- 
ing becomingly the face of the wearer. A hat should 
always be put on with the dress with which it is to be 
worn, and studied carefully from both sides and the back | 
as well as from the front before it is finally decided 
upon. Even a pretty woman cannot wear ‘‘just any- 
thing,’’ because some lines will surely accentuate her 
good points more than others will, and the sharp- 
featured woman should give the buying of a new hat 
the greatest care and consideration. For indeed there is 
a real magic that lies in the lines of millinery, and what- 
ever the type of her face, no woman can afford to over- 
look it. 

This whole question of clothes is important to the 
farm woman. William James once said that ‘‘the old 
Saying that the human person is composed of three 
parts—soul, body and clothes, is more than a joke.’’ 
Whether you like it or not, the people you meet take 
your clothes as an expression of your individuality. 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 139 


They cannot see the real ‘‘you’’ inside, who may be very 
merry and gay—the ‘‘you’’ they are seeing is the out- 
side, which may be largely made up of an old brown 
dress that would make a shining saint look dejected. 
There are a few women whose personality so dominates 
their clothes that they look nice in anything, but for 
most of us it is almost impossible to be ourselves unless 
we are arrayed in a fairly becoming garment. It may 
be only the old blue gingham that we wear about the 
work, but if it is the right shade and the touch of white 
at the neck is becoming, we feel that we are ready to 
face the whole world. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE BOY AND THE GIRL 


“0 be a farm child is the happiest fortune in 
the world. Every one who was farm born 

: ean well recall those dewy mornings in the 
sae when the air is so fresh and the sun so bright 
that the farm children rise twittering like little birds, 
jump into their clothes and run gaily across the lawn 
for the very joy of living—returning breathless and 
beaming and hungry to the family breakfast table, but 
So eager to be off to the great concerns of their play that 
they can hardly take time to finish the meal. And all 
the day long they are as busy as bees, sliding down the 
hay, playing in the carpenter shop, building a dam 
across the brook to turn a watermill, climbing trees, 
hunting the hens’ nests, hitching up the calves, playing 
hide and seek, or earnestly building a fort to stand 
strong and firm against imaginary Indians. 

Though child playmates may be few there are al- 
ways the pet lambs, the curly-tailed pigs, the colts, the 
calves, the chickens and ducks and turkeys, the farm 
dog and the furry kittens, besides all the wild things 
of the woods and fields and treetops to give them com- 
panionship in their play. They are too busy and happy 


ever to feel lonely even in the long summer days. It 
140 





THE BOY AND THE GIRL 141 


is no wonder that they think that the home farm is the 
finest place in the world. But though farm life for 
children has its many joys and advantages, it also has 
its disadvantages, as every farm woman knows. And 
it is the task of the farm woman to make this best 
place for children even better, so that they can realize 
themselves in every possible way. She wants her chil- 
dren to be healthy and normal, growing and well-fed, 
good, intelligent, loving and industrious, for all these 
things are necessary to their future happiness. 

A well-grown, rosy-cheeked farm child is the most 
wholesome creature in the world. He is not only in a 
state of present health, but he is building up a strength 
of constitution which will stand him in good stead in 
his after years under the strain of a strenuous life, of 
wounds or severe illnesses. Herbert Hoover said in a 
recent talk before the American Child Health Associa- 
tion: ‘‘The farm boy stores up vigor and acquires 
resourcefulness, from his life in the open and his direct 
cooperation with Mother Nature, which gives the 
battle to his hands when he tackles the city-bred boy 
on the latter’s own ground. ... There is a subcon- 
scious perception of all this in the minds of city folk, 
as may be seen in the fact that, after a generation or 
two of city life, they feel the urge to get back to the 
eountry. Life in the country is the only thing to keep 
them fit for work in the city.’’ 

Yet unfortunately not every country child is physi- 
eally strong enough to enjoy all the benefits of country 
living. Either because of some physical defect or of 
some fault in his way of life, he is not ‘‘free to gain,’’ 


142 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


as the doctors say, and he grows up pale and listless and 
ill-nourished in spite of all that sunlight and fresh air 
and country life can do for him. Many of the figures 
given out as to the comparative health of city and 
eountry children even indicate that physical defects 
and malnutrition are more common in the country than 
in the city. Most such figures, it seems to me, give a 
very false impression of the healthfulness of the real 
country districts, because they include children living 
in villages and towns up to 1,000 population, in which 
health conditions are frequently much worse than in 
the city or the open country. Actual figures on the 
country districts alone, would, I think, show that 
country children are on the whole healthier than city 
children. 

But the actual number of children below the average 
of health does not matter much. We country people 
want every boy and every girl to be above the average, 
and the boys and girls of our own families we want to 
be as abundantly healthy and well-grown as any prize 
ealf or colt at the fair. We no more like to raise runts 
of boys and girls than we like to raise runty calves or 
pigs on our farms. It is bad business. And yet until 
recently, though the government had taken great care 
for raising the average of farm animals, little help has 
been available to the country woman in raising the aver- 
age of farm children. Fortunately, there are now ob- 
tainable from your Congressman many excellent bulle- 
tins and booklets on child care and training, written by 
some of the foremost experts of the nation. The Ameri- 
ean Child Health Association of New York City pro- 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 143 


vides delightful booklets, suitable for reading by the 
children themselves, and many of the State govern- 
ments give advice to fathers and mothers about the care 
and training of their little ones. In fact, there is now 
no excuse for any one not having at hand the best that 
is known to-day about the rearing of vigorous children. 

One of the first things to find out about a child is its 
present state of health and growth. And this is not 
easy to judge unless one sees it often with other chil- 
dren of the same age. The mother becomes so used to 
looking at the undersized child that she sometimes 
thinks it is merely ‘‘slow of growth’’ when it is in real- 
ity being stunted by some physical defect. Many coun- 
try families have a ‘‘measuring corner’’ somewhere in 
the house with two yardsticks or a new tape-measure 
tacked neatly upon the wall, and a chart for keeping a 
record of the weights and heights of the children. 
Some families make this checking up on growth a sort 
of ceremony at each child’s birthday, but to secure 
health results it should be done much more frequently 
than that. The following weight-height-age tables for 
girls and boys were prepared by Bird T. Baldwin, Ph.D. 
and Thomas D. Wood, M.D. 

Stand the child, without shoes, against the measuring 
scale on the wall and place a light wooden box on his 
head and against the measuring scale, chalk his height, 
and enter the figures on the chart. For his age take 
the nearest birthday. Then find the height in the left 
column and follow across the chart to the proper age 
column. The figure given there will tell what this child 
should weigh. Then weigh the child without shoes or 


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148 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


heavy coat and write down the weight. All this takes 
only a few minutes and the result will give a good idea 
of where the child stands in health-land. For when 
you use a chart in this way it is as if you were standing 
each child up with hundreds of other children of his own 
age and comparing them. Some of them will be much 
above the average, of course, in height and weight, and 
some below—but you will want your own child to be 
at least better than the average, and, if possible, as 
good as the very best. Then you can, indeed, be proud 
of him. In fact, these score cards for children are very 
similar to the score cards used for cattle and horses. 
They provide a standard by which a prize child can be 
distinguished from a scrub child. And certainly every 
woman on the farm should check up on her children’s 
growth as carefully as her husband does on his pure- 
bred livestock. Perhaps in the future at the country 
fairs we shall see rosy-cheeked boys and girls exhibited 
for prizes as the farm animals are now, and lectures 
given on growing and judging prize children. 

If any one of the children is much underweight, it 
is wise to look for the cause, so that it can be removed 
and he can eatch up with his fellows. It does not do to 
put it off, because development lost at one point in his 
growth can never be entirely caught up later. Every 
farmer knows that if he wants his pigs to do their very 
best, they must begin to grow the minute they are born 
and keep growing steadily. It is bad business to let 
them get puny and run-down for any reason—especially 
if he hopes to have them take the prize at the fair. So 
a run-down cliild will never quite ‘‘outgrow it.’’ First 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 149 


the child should be examined by a doctor to find any 
possible physical defect that is stunting his growth. If 
there is no such defect, then it is likely that either his 
health habits or his food is at fault, or both. A very 
active, nervous child in the country will often ‘‘run off’’ 
much weight by his intense activity, and such a child is 
also likely to have peculiar tastes in food and to eat too 
rapidly. His weight may increase if he is required to 
rest or play very quietly for an hour every afternoon, is 
not allowed to leave the table before the rest of the 
family is through, and is taught that drinking milk and 
eating vegetables will make him big and strong. Many 
a small boy has begun to drink milk because he has been 
told that Jack Dempsey always drinks quantities of milk 
when he is in training. And a child who gets his regu- 
lar quart of milk each day will nearly always make the 
proper gain in weight. 

The following health rules for children have been 
compiled by the National Child Health Council: 


1. Hating three warm, wholesome meals regularly each day, 
with no candy or other sweets between meals. Sitting down 
to eat, chewing food thoroughly, eating slowly. 

2. Every day eating some fruit and two or three vege- 
tables, including one green or leafy vegetable. At every 
meal eating some whole grain bread or cereals. 

3. Drinking at least one pint of milk each day, but no tea 
or coffee. 

4, Drinking at least three, or preferably, four glasses of 
water every day. 

5. For children of four or five sleeping at least twelve 
hours each night, well covered, with the bedroom windows 


150 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


open wide, and a midday rest. For older children ten hours’ 
sleep. 

6. Devoting all leisure hours to play out of doors. When 
weather does not permit going out of doors, playing indoors 
with windows open. (Children should have at least two 
hours of play in the fresh air every day.) 

7. A natural bowel movement every day—in the morning 
preferably. 

8. Brushing the teeth at least once a day, especially before 
going to bed. 

9. A full tub or sponge bath at least once a week. 

10. Washing the hands before eating. 

11. Always carrying a handkerchief and being careful to 
protect other people by holding it over the mouth and nose, 
and bowing the head when coughing and sneezing. 


The insistence upon all these things may seem un- 
necessary in the country, but it is not. Even though 
some health conditions are better on the farm, the short- 
‘age of country doctors and hospitals available for coun- 
try people renders it imperative that the children learn 
every possible safeguard to their health. The health 
problem in the country is largely a matter of preven- 
tion of disease rather than of its cure. That the estab- 
lishment of personal health habits has been neg- 
lected by both city and country parents was shown dur- 
ing the World War when the army draft revealed the 
lack of training of the young men. One in every four 
was quite unfit for military service, and few of the 
others knew even the simplest principles of personal 
hygiene. And it is largely a result of the realization of 
this state of affairs that so much emphasis is now being © 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 151 


placed upon good health habits for everybody. Of 
course, no child will establish a habit unless it is watched 
carefully every day, but the extra time required is well 
repaid later in his better health and greater ability to 
look out for himself. Merely to make him keep the health 
rules is not enough—the child himself must become in- 
terested, and the regular monthly weighing and check- 
ing up on the weight chart is the best way to get him 
into the game of building up his strength. 


PLAY 


Play out of doors in the fresh air and sunshine is just 
as important in the country as in the city, and every 
child should have at least two hours for play every day. 
This does not mean sitting down play, either, but active 
games which will develop all the muscles of their bodies 
equally, overcome any ill effects of the work which they 
are required to do, and give grace and self-possession. 

Sometimes the small child in the country gets too 
little fresh air because it ‘‘tags around’’ after the 
mother at her work all day long. Yet she cannot trust 
it to the care of thoughtless older children or have it 
out of her sight. So the little country child needs its 
own sandbox, swing, and toys in view of the kitchen 
windows where it can amuse itself and still be under 
the mother’s supervision. For the older children some 
simple, home-made gymnasium apparatus set up in the 
back yard will give them exercise much less dangerous 
than the tree-climbing and other feats which farm chil- 
dren usually undertake. And the development of good 


152 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


muscular control will often save them from serious ac- 
cidents in the work and play of the farm. Games with 
balls are always fun in the country and are particularly 
good for grace and general development. If there are 
several children in the family simplified forms of volley 
ball, base-ball, basket-ball, and tennis can be played, 
with ‘‘catch’’ or ‘‘pass’’ for the very little children. 
One of the outstanding traits of the country-bred per- 
son is his individuality. He is not cut by a machine- 
made pattern, as the city person often seems to be. 
He can be himself truly and that without encroaching 
upon the rights of those around him. And the devel- 
opment of this originality is of great importance. Its 
erowth begins in the freedom of the child in his play, 
and develops through his passionate interest in ‘‘fads,’’ 
upon which the older folk look with kindly tolerance if 
not with real appreciation. Who would take away from 
the country child the joy of collecting—anything? 
And what country-reared person would like to lose 
his memories of the busy hours spent over many an ab- 
sorbing project of his own? ‘There is his collection of 
Indian relics—arrow-heads and pipes and tomahawks 
and bits of chipped flint—gathered from miles about 
with as intense a scientific passion as that which led to 
the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamen. Like the 
archeologist, from these bits of fashioned stone he has 
reconstructed in his imagination the life of a bygone 
age. Its people have become real to him, they live and 
love and make war and vanquish their enemies. And 
never in all his life to come is pioneer and Indian his- 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 153 


tory dead stuff to the child who has had such a collec- 
tion. 

And the country boy’s string of birds’ eggs—which 
we now deplore because of its wastefulness—was an edu- 
cation in itself. In his passion for collecting as many 
kinds of eggs and as fine specimens as possible he 
learned the secrets of all the treetops, the nesting habits 
of many kinds of birds and their general characteristics, 
besides getting a thorough training in agility and re- 
sourcefulness in his efforts to secure his specimens. 
After that a bird was never a mere bird to him. It was 
a robin or a bluebird or a wren, and his interest in 
natural life had been lifted as high as the treetops at 
least. In a similar way his stamp collection gives a 
elowing zeal for geography, a collection of stones opens 
the door to geology, his love for hunting leads him to 
study the habits of the shy wild things of the woods and 
fields, and his collection of pets gives him plenty of 
exercise for all the responsibility and ingenuity of which 
he is capable. 

But it is not enough merely to tolerate these childish 
enthusiasms. The wise farm parents see in the chil- 
dren’s fads an opportunity for leading them into the 
‘fields of science and literature, and deliberately culti- 
vate their interest in the things around them. When 
the boy becomes interested in Indian lore the way is 
made easy for him to fill in the outlines of his imagina- 
tive picture, by suggesting that he buys books about In- 
dians and pioneer history, and by telling him the stories 
of Daniel Boone and David Crockett and all the other 


154 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


picturesque pioneer folk. And he can be led to ask 
questions of the old people of the neighborhood, who 
remember some of the incidents and the customs of the 
old days, and through their tales of old times he will 
gain a respect for age and its wisdom which he could 
gain in no other way. <A boy who has once sat open- 
mouthed at his grandfather’s rendition of the stories of 
pioneer and Indian days will never think his grand- 
father an old fogy. He will see the vigor and the hero- 
ism of his life and long to emulate it in his own. 

And instead of allowing the boy and girl to collect 
birds’ eggs and so destroy what Nature has given them, 
the modern woman on the farm turns their eager inter- 
est to conserving the natural life. And by teaching 
them a love for the country, she opens their eyes to 
natural science at an early age. The great naturalist, 
John Burroughs, once wrote: ‘‘Some people seem 
born with eyes in their heads, and others with buttons 
on painted marbles, and no amount of science can 
make the one equal to the other in seeing things. 
... Even the successful angler seems born and not 
made; he appears to know instinctively the ways of 
trout. The secret is no doubt the love of the sport. ... 
The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, and its 
means of seeing are in proportion to the love and desire 
behind it... . You must have the bird in your heart 
before you ean find it in the bush.’’ So the country 
mother tries to give her child the bird in its heart, first 
of all, and then to lead it to the study of birds in the 
bush. 

Bird migration ig one of the greatest wonders of the 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 155 


world of nature. There are many things about it that 
nobody understands. Why do they travel at night? 
Why do they go such great distances when shorter ones 
would apparently do as well? How can they time their 
journeys so that they arrive at almost the same date 
year after year? And the child who becomes interested 
in keeping a bird ‘‘log’’ or diary will have the thrill- 
ing experience with each returning spring of checking 
up his feathered friends and watching for their return. 
April and May are the best months for bird study. 
Then the feathered tribe is at its best as it comes up from 
the South with sleek spring costumes of bright colors. 
They are then full of song, restless and eager to be 
away to field, forest and mountain to begin the work of 
nest-building. In the eastern United States the proces- 
sion of the returning birds begins early with the com- 
ing of the purple grackle and others of the blackbird 
family and ending with the great flocks of the chimney 
swift from far off Argentine. It is most interesting to 
climb to the top of a hill at night during the spring mi- 
eration and listen to the ‘‘honk! honk!’’ of the wild 
goose, the whistle of the killdeer, and the squeak of the 
night-hawk during the evening hours. Longfellow 
wrote of them: 


Above, in the light 
Of the starlit night, 
Swift birds of passage wing their flight 
Through the dewy atmosphere; 
And I hear the ery 
Of their voices high, 
Falling dreamily through the sky. 


156 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


To be equipped to learn all the birds of the farm the 
young enthusiast needs only a good bird book or bird 
guide with colored pictures which he can compare with 
the birds as he sees them, and a small notebook in which 
to write down their names. He tries to learn the names 
of the birds, learn their ways and watch them at their 
nesting time, and continually to add to his store of 
knowledge about them. A good pair of opera or field 
glasses is helpful in bird study, but by no means neces- 
sary, as the children can learn the Indian art of slip- 
ping up noiselessly to make their observations. In the 
winter they can keep up their interest by reading about 
birds or using their knowledge in school work, in feed- 
ing the winter birds, and in building simple bird houses 
to be placed in the trees to attract birds the following 
spring. 

The study of birds may not seem very necessary to 
the suecess of the farming operations, but the scientists 
have shown that it is extremely important. Nearly all 
the birds are helpful in keeping down insect pests, and 
often the orchards and fields of the bird lover are notice- 
ably freer from injurious insects than those of his 
neighbors who make no effort to keep the birds around 
them. The Biological Survey of the Department of 
Agriculture has reported that sixty-six kinds of birds 
of the Southeastern States feed upon boll weevils and 
every orchard has its army of bird protectors without 
which it could produce little sound fruit. Indeed it is 
only a matter of encouraging the birds and protecting 
them from their enemies to keep in check many of the 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 157 


worst of the farm insect pests. And who is so ready 
and eager for such service as the children on the farm? 

The little wild folk of the woods and fields can be 
studied in the same way, though a guide-book is not so 
necessary for them. Books on the lives of the animals, 
however, like Ernest Thompson-Seton’s ‘‘ Wild Animals 
I Have Known,’’ should be in every country child’s 
library. And he should be encouraged to observe the 
actions of the animals he meets as he goes about the 
farm and to report what he sees for. the benefit of the 
family. No child who has ever seen a fox slipping 
through the trees, a groundhog or a prairie-dog digging 
a hole, a squirrel busily storing away nuts for winter, 
a skunk daintily mincing down the path, or a raccoon 
washing its food in the brook, will ever forget it, and 
such observations will form the basis of much of his 
later learning. Even the snakes form an interesting 
study. If the child is carefully trained to recognize 
quickly the poisonous species, he will soon become in- 
terested in their habits and lose much of the snake- 
terror which is the bane of many a country child’s 
existence. For the older children a camera with which 
to take snapshots is a help to nature study. 

Another field of interest which widens the world of 
the country boy and girl is the radio. Indeed the radio 
receiving set has come to be almost a necessity in every 
American farm home. It is remarkable how quickly 
the country people have recognized the utility of this 
new invention. The farmers are finding the receiving set 
particularly valuable in getting market reports, and the 


158 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


weather report for the next day, which is sent out from 
Washington, D. C., and relayed from other stations at 
10 p.m. Sometimes this service is invaluable. 

A good erystal set can be built by a bright boy or 
girl, after a little study, for less than ten dollars, and 
it becomes an important factor in the family life. A 
erystal set, however, is not designed to operate a loud 
speaker, nor will it bring in programs from great dis- 
tances. The usual range is said to be about twenty-five 
miles, but frequently it reaches much farther than this, 
and whatever it receives is marked by a sweet, clear 
tone. The more expensive tube sets bring in the pro- 
grams with less interference and from a wide range, and 
can be equipped with loud speaking devices. Of 1200 
farm owners of radio receiving sets who recently re- 
ported to the Department of Agriculture, about half 
owned tube sets and half crystal sets, but undoubtedly 
the use of tube sets is growing. The average cost of 
home-made crystal sets was eleven dollars, of home- 
made tube sets eighty-three dollars. Complete sets 
bought from the factory ran considerably higher in 
price, but were often reported as more satisfactory. 
Any kind of radio set is far better than none, and it is 
coming to be one of the real necessities of the country 
home. 

Not only does the family radio builder learn much 
about the science of electricity, but all the children 
hurry through their evening chores in order to have 
time to listen in to the evening program. And it is a 
great experience for the farm woman, particularly if she 
lives far from a city, to hurry in from washing of the 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 159 


milk pails and find herself with the turn of a knob 
in the midst of a city symphony concert. It is a real 
concert, too, for she can hear the folks clapping their 
hands at the end of the number, and hear the rustle as 
they turn their programs. In the old days when a coun- 
try woman wanted to hear some good music, she had to 
spend a half day of hard work dressing up in uncom- 
fortable clothes and taking the train to the city, not to 
mention a considerable amount of money for concert 
tickets and train fare. And she would get home at one 
or two o’clock in the morning with a headache to hang 
over into the next day. But now she can listen to ex- 
eellent symphony concerts, organ recitals, violin and 
voeal numbers without any trouble at all. Excellent 
talks on almost every subject are broadeast and the daily 
paper brings the program from the broadcasting sta- 
tions, so that no one need miss anything that is good. 

Major General Harbord of the Radio Corporation of 
America recently said: ‘‘The greatest accomplishment 
of the radio is its service in bringing knowledge and 
pleasure to remote and isolated communities. The 
great cities no longer have a monopoly of the finest 
fruits of our culture in such things as music, ora- 
tory and easy contact with our scientists and scholars. 
Through radio the greatest singers, the master mu, 
Sicians, the famous scientists, scholars and thinkers 
of the world can and do reach an audience which 
extends from the heart of New York or London to the 
loneliest farm on the western prairies or the most 
isolated mountain village. The far-reaching influ- 
ence of radio in this respect cannot but have a pro- 


160 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


found effect in raising the cultural level of our race.’’ 

In fact a good radio receiving set now brings much 
of the life of the cities to the country boy and girl. 
They delight in hearing the latest song hits and keeping 
up by word of mouth, as it were, with the gay life out- 
side their own world, as well as listening in upon the 
good music and good talks which form the meat of the 
evening program. Their knowledge of geography is en- 
larged as they study the radio maps and keep up the 
daily ‘‘log’’ of stations received by the home set, and for 
the little children of the family the regular bedtime 
story is a real treat. So that altogether the radio ac- 
complishes much in the development of the country child 
by furnishing him with a brand-new fad, intensely in- 
teresting in itself, and full of possibilities for his further 
progress. 

A delightful fad for the farm girl is the study of the 
wild flowers and plants of the neighborhood. Her love 
for pretty things draws her to them instinctively and 
her interest can easily be developed until it 1s educa- 
tional. Again guide-books with colored pictures are 
almost necessary. The old-time botanies with their in- 
tricate keys and microscopic work are practically use- 
less for a child. A farm woman writes me: ‘‘I really 
think children enjoy farm life so much more if they can 
eall the different plants, flowers, birds and butterflies by 
name. A child seeing these things every day and not 
knowing them is as bad off as the city child who doesn’t 
know the name of his next-door neighbor.’’ And this 
knowledge does bring a real intimacy with the woods 
and fields which no other knowledge gives, It is one 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 161 


of the great opportunities of farm life everywhere. 
Other studies of stones, butterflies, beetles, worms, and 
trees can be developed until each child in the family has 
his own specialty in natural lore, about which he can 
talk with interest and appreciation. 

If either the boy or girl shows an interest in car- 
pentry, the farm carpenter shop will be a joy. I re- 
member that some of the happiest days of my own 
childhood were spent at work with the plane and the 
saw and the drawing-knife and the chisel in the gray 
old carpenter shop, and I still keep in my room in the 
country pieces of furniture which I made with my own 
hands. Some of them I also carved or decorated in 
burnt work. Carpentry and cabinet work form a fasci- 
nating exercise and, if soft wood is used, not too exacting 
on a girl’s strength. There is no reason why any farm 
girl who is handy with tools should not make most of 
the furniture for her own room. If the farmer himself 
is not a skilful carpenter, it may be possible to arrange 
for some one in the neighborhood to give her a little 
guidance in the use of the various tools. The farm 
blacksmith shop, too, 1s a place of recreation. With a 
little training and unlimited energy and patience the 
young worker can make quaint hinges, candlesticks, 
sconces for candles, and other useful articles, as well as 
gain a skill which will be useful later in repairing 
the farm tools. 

One of the greatest needs of the country boy or girl 
with special interests is a personal room, sacred from 
the rest of the family, or, failing this, a roomy cup- 
board in which all the treasures can be locked up and 


162 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


kept safe from the younger children. If the boy is 
handy with tools, he can make a neat cabinet for his 
collections, in which to arrange them and display them 
as he sees fit. Or if there is no available place in the 
house for such a bulky piece of furniture he should be 
allowed to build a shack somewhere about the place in 
which he can store his treasures, and work on his 
collections. It will do much to give him a self-reliant 
spirit if he realizes that one place on the farm is wholly 
his own. 

The girl, too, should have her own room if possible, 
where she can keep her belongings and feel a responsi- 
bility for keeping it dainty and neat. Some of the farm 
girls’ clubs have interested their members in contests 
in furnishing bedrooms. Each girl is expected to make 
her own room dainty and livable, with the least possible 
expense. And in the judging of results the character of 
the original furnishings and the amount of money spent 
is counted, as well as the appearance and convenience 
of the finished room. Many farm girls with a little 
light paint, pretty wall paper and dainty embroidered 
or figured hangings have furnished rooms of which they 
are very justly proud. 


RELIGION 


Religion for the country child is a natural expression 
of himself. Country people, if they are spiritually 
minded at all, live very close to God in their daily lives. 
They see Him in a thousand manifestations about them 
and feel Him aiding their merely human efforts to grow 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 163 


and nurture the growing plants and animals upon the 
farm. And one seldom finds a little child who is not 
spiritually minded. All he needs is a gentle guidance 
from mother or father to see in all the miracles of 
nature around him the workings of a beautiful and 
beneficent power. Little talks on Sunday afternoon 
walks in the woods and fields, simple stories from the 
Bible of God’s love for man, and a few simple prayers 
and hymns and psalms which can be memorized on rainy 
Sundays will give the necessary direction to the coun- 
try child’s adventures in religion. If the local Sunday 
School and church training is inefficient, it is also neces- 
sary to give him a knowledge of the Bible, which can 
best be done by good books of Bible stories and selected 
readings from the Bible itself. Those parts should be 
picked out which will link up with the child’s expe- 
rience on the farm. For instance, every country child 
who knows the farm flock of sheep will enjoy and appre- 
ciate, ‘‘The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want,’’ and 
‘‘T am the Shepherd, ye are the sheep.’’ And thus 
with the proper guidance the farm will give to all the 
children an ever-widening vision of the meaning of life. 
Wherever they may go or whatever they may do in 
after years, they will need this vision—and they will 
need it most of all if they stay upon the farm. Dr. L. 
H. Bailey says: ‘‘A man cannot be a good farmer un- 
less he is a religious man. The heavens declare the 
elory of God and the firmament showeth His handi- 
work.’’ 

And certainly the girl who is to be a farm woman will 
have much need for the fundamental appreciation of 


164 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


religion. It will make even her hardest work and her 
heaviest cares seem a part of God’s work. As a New 
York country woman writes me, after telling of being 
up almost all night to get her work done after a day at 
the fair: ‘‘I went out at almost three o’clock to hang 
up the milk-strainers. And out under the trees I 
looked up to see the great blue bowl overhead and the 
stars Swinging on and on, and I just sat down on a 
bench underneath and listened to the silence. Sat 
there and saw the beauty of it all in just the light that 
comes before the dawn. It isn’t dawn in September at 
three, but there is a stillness and a hush and I sat and 
watched the old earth draw her breath—and I drew 
mine. And as I sat I didn’t care that in another hour 
the cows would be in the barn and the day would open 
up again. I forgot the milking and the noise and the 
bustle, for the night was so soft and sweet and I had 
a chance to look at it alone.’’ The wise farm woman 
will build up in her little daughter a delight in nature 
so that she can turn to it for renewed strength and 
spiritual power in all the difficult and weary hours of 
her life. 


‘WorRK 


Country people usually believe in the necessity of 
work for children. To them growth is inconceivable 
without the aid of work, and work itself is_ self- 
expression through action which gives an opportunity 
for moral and spiritual growth. For this reason the 
farm children are taught to work, and the farm people 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 165 


do not believe in arbitrary restrictions upon children’s 
labor. But there is really a great difference between 
children’s work as it is known upon the average farm 
and ‘‘child-labor.’’ Children’s work may be a happy 
exercise aS well as a useful one. They learn best by 
doing things with their hands and thinking things out 
as they do them, and farm children have this training 
in self-help provided for them every day of their lives. 
All children love to do what older people do—at least 
to try to do it—and if they are praised whenever they 
make an effort, even if they are not very successful, they 
will try and try again until they can really accomplish 
something. But what is meant by child labor is the 
performance of tasks which, after the first few trials, 
have little educative value, which hold the child to a 
strict routine, leaving many of his muscles under- 
developed, and which by the long hours that are in- 
volved deprive him of his rights to play and education. 
As every farm person knows, very few of the tasks 
which the farm children are called upon to do have any 
of the characteristics of child labor. Except in a few 
sections of the country in which large groups of children 
are employed under a ‘“‘boss’’ at weeding, transplanting, 
or berry-picking, the farm child’s work is widely varied, 
nearly always has new elements in it for him to think 
about and leaves him much time for play between 
tasks. | 
Routine chores are least helpful to a child’s develop- 
ment and if there are too many of them and they call 
for much the same play of muscles, there is some physi- 
cal danger. Some country children, for instance, have 


166 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


become stoop-shouldered because nearly all the daily 
tasks involved stooping, lifting or carrying—like ecarry- 
ing baskets of corn in feeding, buckets of milk, water, 
and swill, and baskets of vegetables from the garden, 
picking vegetables, washing dishes, etc. Thus the 
muscles of the chest become unduly developed in com- 
parison with those of the back, and a stoop and general 
awkwardness is the result. A frequent change to work 
in other positions, ball games and general gymnas- 
tic work, and the lightening of loads by the use of a 
little wagon wherever possible, will help to prevent the 
faulty posture, which, persisted in, will compress the 
lungs and impair to some extent the general health of 
the child. Bernarr MacFadden, the physical culture 
expert, gives as a corrective exercise for stooped shoul- 
ders the following: ‘‘An ideal posture corrective is the 
simple exercise of clasping the hands back of the head, 
then pulling the head and elbows backward. This will 
straighten the spine, raise the chest and give good stand- 
ing position. Repeat this movement several times 
whenever you think of it, if possible dozens of times a 
day.’’ But a constant change of work to bring all the 
muscles into play is the best corrective. 

Another danger is in the unprotected machinery gen- 
erally used upon farms, though very often a protective 
device would add but little to the cost of the machine. 
This is one thing for which the farm women of the coun- 
try should certainly stand together, to demand from 
the manufacturers of farm machinery machines as 
‘*fool-proof’’ as possible, if there is any likelihood that 
the farm children will be called upon to use them. 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 167 


Proper safety devices would undoubtedly save many 
farm children from death or maiming. Still another 
danger to the child is that in the rush and excitement 
of harvesting and threshing, he may undertake too much 
or try to ‘‘show off’’ and do himself permanent physical 
injury. In fact children on the farm or anywhere else 
should always work under pretty close supervision by 
some one who is thinking more of their welfare than of 
making money or of merely getting the work done. 
Work can always be done to-morrow, but a crippled 
child is crippled a long, long time. 

What the eager country child wants is life, and he 
wants it more abundantly. He wants to take his place 
among the doers of the world and to become a creator 
in carpentry, cooking, raising a garden, raising pigs 
or colts or calves, canning fruits, and all the other real 
tasks of the farm. Too many routine tasks, even if 
they are well within his powers, grow monotonous and 
he thinks of them as drudgery. But give him a real 
chance at a real job and he will respond with an inter- 
est, and think the farm is the greatest place in the 
world. Let the girl become the family cake-baker or 
maker of preserves, or make pretty underwear for her- 
self and baby sister, or have a tomato or flower garden 
all her own to do with as she pleases. Let the boy grow 
his acre of corn, or raise his pig for the pig club, or 
take charge of the orchard, or any other part of the 
farm work which is within his strength and which will 
bring some money into his pocket, and he will be eager 
and enthusiastic. One woman, reared on a farm, told 
me of her childhood training: ‘‘I wasn’t taught to do 


168 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


a thing. I could get out the bread-board and sift the 
flour and knead the dough and stoke the oven, but 
I could n’t make a loaf of bread. I peeled hundreds of 
bushels of apples and other fruit and prepared berries 
for cooking and all kinds of vegetables, and washed up 
the heavy pots and kettles after the work was done, but 
if I had been expected to put up a single can, I wouldn’t 
have known how to turn my hand over.’’ The trouble 
was, of course, that her mother had kept all the interest- 
ing part of the work for herself, and had failed to give 
her daughter a real training in anything. 

Along with a training in work, should come a ecare- 
ful training in business methods. While it is true that 
in the country money is not regarded as being able to 
do everything, as it too often is in town, and much of 
the country child’s work should be done for the general 
good of the family without thought of payment, still 
every child should have some task for the accomplish- 
ment of which he is given money, even if it is only a 
little. And as soon as possible every child should have 
a little savings account or a bank account of his own, 
for training in the use and handling of money must 
be begun early if it is to be effective. And the figuring 
of little sums, deciding among many things he wants to 
buy, and the saving up of small amounts in order to 
buy something larger and more desirable, are all worth 
much more than the money it takes to give this training. 
The child will soon learn, too, how to invest his small 
Savings in something on the farm which will bring in 
more money, and to place part of his money in a savings 
account so that it can draw interest. Some mothers 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 169 


teach their children the value of interest by having the 
interest on the little deposit paid into the child’s hand 
once every six months. Thus the child understands 
that his money has ‘‘worked for him”’’ to that extent. 
Many families so arrange it that the children in their 
work are looking forward to a high-school or college 
education, as this gives them a definite goal in which 
they will be interested. There is no reason why any 
bright and ambitious country boy should not put him- 
self through college on the proceeds of his corn, pigs, 
ealves, or other special activities, and yet have much 
time to help with the regular work of the farm. And 
the girl should be given an equally good chance to se- 
cure an education. She should be allowed to under- 
take canning, cake-baking, pickle-making, poultry rais- 
ing, bee-keeping, or some other profitable side-line in 
which she can make her own money. Or if the home 
duties are so great that her time must be given to them 
she should be given a proper allowance for her help. 
Many farm girls have added to their income by 
developing a small fruit garden, as there is nearly al- 
ways a local market for berries in season. Strawberries, 
raspberries, dewberries, and blackberries give a succes- 
sion of crops and bulletins from the Department of 
Agriculture furnish expert help on their planting and 
culture. Any berries which do not find an immediate 
market can be made into jams and jellies for family 
use or for sale later. Some girls grow tomatoes and can 
them and sell them locally. Others make a specialty of 
raising turkeys or ducks or geese. Others, who are near 
a city market, develop an old-fashioned flower garden 


170 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


and sell flowers, bulbs and roots to the city people. Still 
other girls who enjoy sewing, work up a trade in making 
simple children’s clothes in attractive styles for the busy 
mothers in the ueighborhood. Live-stock raising is a 
favorite field for girls as well as boys, and many girls 
raise pigs, calves, or Shetland ponies and make a good 
income from them. 

In fact, the farm girl should be given just as good a 
chance in everything as her brother has. She should 
work outdoors a good part of her time, take part in all 
the games and vigorous exercises, go on all the fishing 
and nutting expeditions, be allowed some free time 
from the care of the little children of the family, and 
learn to harness the horse or drive the automobile so 
that she can come and go with freedom. If she is given 
a square deal, including some chance for social develop- 
ment, she will realize that not all the opportunities of 
life are to be found in the cities. <As the girl grows 
older she can take more of the home responsibility. 
Many farm girls, after working out their own budget 
of expenses for some time, prepare the budget for the 
family, reckoning amounts and kinds of supplies needed, 
clothes necessary, quality and quantities of materials 
and additions to the home equipment. This gives them 
a greater understanding of the home problems and a 
greater interest in them. The farm boy, also, may be- 
come the business man of the farm, keeping the ac- 
counts in order, making out the farm inventory each 
year, and figuring up the production costs. It is ex- 
cellent training and not burdensome if the boy is quick 
at figures. 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 171 


SocIAL TRAINING 


The social training of country children is very often 
neglected. They are allowed to hang back when com- 
pany comes, and then when they wish to be sociable 
they are awkward and _ self-conscious. One country 
mother writes me that she thinks careful social training 
a most important part of the country child’s education. 
She says that she is always careful to treat her children 
like grown-ups, introducing them to callers just as if 
they were grown people, and having them sit down and 
join in the conversation for a little while with the visi- 
tors. If fruit or cider is to be served the children are 
expected to serve it, to bring napkins or plates and 
otherwise look after the comfort of the guests. And if 
a guest is to be shown about the farm, one of the chil- 
dren is chosen to be the guide, to lead the wav and answer 
questions and do the honors of the occasion. Though 
the mother goes along, she does not interfere or make 
any additions to the information until the child has told 
all he knows. And occasionally she invites in another 
child or two for a meal or for the afternoon, and lets 
one of the children be host or hostess for the occasion. 
The child feels a great responsibility for making his 
guests comfortable, playing the games which they will 
enjoy most and making a happy party. Next time, 
when another child is the leader, he receives training in 
being a guest. ‘‘Please’’ and ‘‘thank you’’ are the rule 
of the house and as real a courtesy is extended to the 
baby as to the outside visitor. In this way she gives 
the children a simple social training which they enjoy 


172 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


and which will save them from many an embarrassed 
moment in after life. 

Another thing which the woman on the farm must 
teach her children in the home is the use of good Eng- 
lish. Country living tends to carelessness of speech, 
and with the present low standard for teachers in the 
country schools the young girl who is employed often, 
by her own speech mistakes, teaches the children bad 
English instead of good. In many farm families the 
children, are expected to talk at the table, each about 
whatever he is most interested in, for the pleasure of the 
rest of the family. It is really a simple matter to 
teach careful speech to children if one’s efforts are per- 
sisted in from day to day, for the actual number of 
wrong forms they use is not likely to be numerous— 
usually there are three or four wrong forms of verbs, 
wrong case forms for pronouns, and a few careless pro- 
nunciations. 

Every country boy and girl has a personality dif- 
ferent from that of every other person in the world, 
and should be allowed to develop it to the greatest pos- 
sible extent. But at the same time the country child, 
like the city child, must learn how to work with others, 
to give up personal preferences for the sake of the 
general good, to conform to all the laws and customs 
which are for the good of society, and in general, to 
learn how to lead other people as well as to do the right 
thing himself. In other words, he must know how to be 
his distinctive self on the one hand, and yet be merged 
with the crowd on the other. With such training the 
country-reared young person will be fit for any position 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 173 


in life to which his talents or his industry may raise 
him, whether this be in the country or in the city. 

It is an old, exploded notion that inevitably the bright- 
est of the country boys and girls go to the city. Indeed, 
IT have always had a suspicion that it never was any- 
thing but a bit of fiction, spread abroad by the city 
people to justify their self-conceit. The fact is that 
country life as a whole in America has moved ahead just 
about as fast as city life has, and there is no noticeable 
difference in intelligence between the people in the cities 
and the people on the farms. It is true there are many 
boys and girls born on the farm with native gifts for 
the development of which the city offers the only oppor- 
tunity, and it is better for them to seek the larger 
centers. But all the average bright girl or boy needs 
for becoming intensely interested in the farm is a part 
of its interesting work to do and not too much of it; 
an opportunity to get ahead and a reasonable amount of 
time and opportunity for recreation. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE SCHOOL 


F all the serious problems which confront the 
() thinking farm woman, there is none more 

difficult than that of the rural school. She 
realizes only too clearly that as conditions now are in 
many communities her children are penalized for 
living in the country, because the opportunities for 
Securing a good education are so insufficient. In the 
recent exodus from the rural districts by thousands of 
familes many parents gave as their reason that they 
were going to town to secure better schooling for their 
children. This is indeed a laudable motive, but it is 
probable that in many eases better results would have 
been secured and greater happiness for the children by 
developing the rural school instead of moving within 
reach of the town school. 

No other institution in country life is so backward as 
the average country school. Indeed it is actually true 
that in many good farming localities the children are 
being taught in schools almost as primitive as those 
their grandfathers attended when they were boys. The 
school building is very little more comfortable than 
the old log schoolhouse and the seats and desks almost 


as inadequate. There is little modern equipment of 
174 


THE SCHOOL 175 


any kind. The teacher, though probably better trained, 
is often so young in years and experience that she is, on 
the whole, inferior in her influence to the old-time 
schoolmaster. Young people not nearly old enough to 
vote are allowed to teach in most country schools with- 
out any question. As the rest of the world has moved 
on, the school has not moved with it. In grandfather’s 
childhood the lack of educational facilities did not mat- 
ter much, because other children had no better. Even 
the city schools were of the same type. But the boys 
and girls of to-day in the one-room country school must 
enter upon their life work in competition with men and 
women trained in the fine consolidated schools and in 
the well-equipped schools of the cities. If it were not 
for the additional training which they receive in the 
work and play on the farm, they would be hopelessly 
handicapped in the race. In any case, their chances for 
success in life are certainly less because of their lack of 
proper training. 

The school equipment has not kept up with that of the 
homes of the community. The old log, schoolhouse of 
gerandfather’s time was probably as comfortable as were 
most of the homes of the neighborhood. But in many 
country districts to-day the women of the farm are com- 
pelled to send their children to schools which are far 
below their home conditions. In the homes pretty rugs 
and fresh curtains and soft-tinted walls and comfortable 
chairs have taken the place of the discomforts and ugli- 
ness of the pioneer home, but in the schools the walls 
are still bare and ugly, the seats uncomfortable, there 
are no curtains or inside blinds at the windows, and the 


176 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


whole place is sometimes so dirty that the family laun- 
dry work is greatly increased. However eager and will- 
ing the young teacher may be, she cannot teach well 
under such conditions. In fact, the mere housekeeping 
of country schools in most communities has been woe- 
fully neglected. One country woman remarked to me, 
as she pointed out the dirt on the _ schoolhouse 
floor, ‘‘Couldn’t you just tell by looking at it that 
the men were running it?’’ And surely no real 
housekeeper would ever have let a room get in such a 
condition. 

So it seems to me that one of the first steps to im- 
prove the country school is for the women themselves 
to take a much larger part on the school boards and in 
everything which pertains to the country school. A 
schoolhouse is first of all a house—and women have cer- 
tainly had training in housekeeping. And second, it is 
a place for training children—and that is also primarily 
the woman’s field. Indeed, the schoolhouse is a home, 
to all the children of the neighborhood for several hourse 
a day, and it should have all that loving care which a 
home demands. In many country communities great 
changes have been brought about in the schools with lit- 
tle increased cost to the taxpayers, because the women 
of the local Grange, or of the churches, or of a woman’s 
club, have taken an active interest in the problem. Re- 
sults have usually been better when one organization 
made the local school and its problems its especial task 
and asked for cooperation from the other local groups. 
For this plan insures continued effort by a part of the 
people, and an active interest. What is everybody’s 


THE SCHOOL 177 


business is isually nobody’s business in country life af- 
fairs. 

In some school districts it has seemed better to or- 
ganize a Parent-Teacher Association for the definite 
purpose of improving the school. The parents, or at 
least the mothers, meet with the teacher at the school- 
house once each month to talk over school problems 
and ways of solving them, and it is surprising what 
they have been able to accomplish in a short time. In 
a recent letter to The Farmer’s Wife, an Iowa farm 
woman tells this inspiring story of the work of the local 
association : 


We did three things to start the improvement—started a 
parent-teacher association, elected a woman on the board of 
directors, and hired teachers who cared about the school. 
Our building was a two-room school in a thickly populated 
rural district, with over sixty children crowded into the pri- 
mary room. | 

The first thing was to get the parents to see the over- 
crowded, unhealthy conditions, and, if possible, to improve 
things. Once a month a mothers’ meeting was held in the 
afternoon and monthly meetings in the evening gave father 
a chance to see things. The mothers began the good work by 
studying nutrition and as a result warm lunches were served. 
In the evening plans for better schools were discussed, be- 
sides having music and various interesting numbers on the 
program. The meetings served to get people acquainted be- 
sides helping the school. 

These are some of the direct results of this campaign. 


1. The schoolhouse was remodeled, two rooms being added, 
besides a large basement. 


178 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


2. Indoor toilets were provided. 

3. Heating plant was installed. 

4. A room in the basement was planned for gymnasium 
work or play. 

5. A place for domestic science was arranged. This has 
not been used this year but will be equipped as soon as can 
be managed. 

6. Electric lights were put in. 

7. The school was standardized. 

8. Some playground equipment was purchased and more 
will be added when more money is raised. 

9. The lighting of the rooms was made better by changing 
the windows. 

10. Primary equipment, maps, sets of supplementary read- 
ers, globes and various other supplies were purchased. 

11. A well was dug and running water is now available 
throughout the building. 

12. One teacher was elected principal of the building. 

13. A janitor was hired. 

14. A bazaar was held this winter, netting over $400. 

15. A fine piano was bought. The primary room has rec- 
ord music. 

16. Tha school yard, onee so muddy in wet weather as to 
make playing almost impossible, has been graded and im- 
proved. The directors are considering the problem of more 
playground. 


Many socials, and various money-making events were held 
to raise the money for these improvements and I do not think 
the people will be satisfied to stop now. All this has hap- 
pened in less than a year. Public sentiment seemed to be 
against building on account of the high tax and I am afraid 
the proposition would have been defeated at the voting if the 
interest of the people had not been aroused. 


THE SCHOOL 179 


THE CONSOLIDATED SCHOOL 


In some country communities the way out to better 
training for the children has been through the con- 
solidated school. A large, well-equipped building is 
erected at some central point, the one-room schools 
closed, and the children carried back and forth in 
wagons or motor buses. The plan has its disadvan- 
tages, of course, but the country women whom I know 
report that after it has been tried for a time they would 
not go back to the inefficient one-room school for any- 
thing in the world. Even those who most opposed the 
change in the beginning are often the most enthusi- 
astic. 

Some of the advantages of the consolidated school, 
according to the reports I have had from the farm 
people, are that the attendance is greatly increased 
throughout the community. There is a joy in working 
in big classes and taking part in the varied activities 
of the larger school. And the older children especially, 
who used to become discontented and drop out of the 
one-room school, find their interest in school events 
increasing instead of growing less. The classes are 
better graded and the teacher can have longer lesson 
periods and give more thought and attention to the 
needs of each class. The children can have instruction 
in drawing, music, nature study, manual training, 
domestic science, and agriculture because the larger 
school can provide better trained teachers and the 
equipment necessary for these studies, And the larger 


180 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


number of children permits the organization of group 
games on the playground, and of an orchestra, a band, 
a dramatic society, a literary society, and all the other 
activities which are so much enjoyed by the children in 
the city schools. In fact, the consolidated school comes 
nearest to providing for country children the kind and 
amount of training which city children receive—and 
that is what the thinking farm woman greatly desires. 
Yet according to the reports the consolidated school 
actually costs very little more than the one-room school. 
It is the combining of forces which renders the better 
training possible. 

It is true that the children are farther away from 
home during school hours. But a child one mile from 
home, who has to walk, is really farther away than a 
child five miles off who has transportation. Even if 
the very youngest children should miss a year of school, 
the added length of the term and the better instruction 
would give an increase in their schooling. But the 
tiny children enjoy the ride in a comfortable bus, 
the good hot lunch at school, which is usually provided 
by the domestic science department, and the oppor- 
tunity of associating with many little ones of their own 
age. The older people also take a greater interest in 
the consolidated school, for it gives them something to 
be proud of. After the first obstacles of the small 
neighborhood feeling are overcome they are glad to be- 
long to the larger neighborhood as it gives them a larger 
acquaintance and a wider view of hfe. As with the 
country church, the reach of the one-room country 


THE SCHOOL 181 


school is much too small since the expansion of country 
life brought about by better roads and automobiles. It 
must give way in the new and larger neighborhood to a 
more efficient institution if our country life is to pros- 
per as it should. The school becomes a center of com- 
munity life for recreation, entertainment and amuse- 
ment, as well as for instruction. In fact, the advantages 
of the consolidated school so far outweigh the disad- 
vantages that the country people with whom I have 
talked have been greatly in its favor. 

It usually takes many months to develop the com- 
munity sentiment in favor of consolidating the schools, 
but a determined body of men and women ean bring it 
about. It is sometimes wise to show views of con- 
solidated schools, with interesting motion pictures of the 
children on the playground, in the domestic science and 
manual training laboratories, and in the other school 
activities. If there is a consolidated school in a nearby 
county, enthusiastic parents from that place will proba- 
bly be glad to tell about their own school. Groups of 
the children in a pageant or a simple dramatic enter- 
tainment will also prove a drawing card and show the 
parents what can be accomplished. Charts of costs of 
the different types of school, teachers’ salaries, the tax 
rate, etc., help to give the people data from which to 
judge in considering the new plan. But the chief 
necessity is a constant insistence upon a better schooling 
for the children so that they will stand an even chance 
with the children trained in the fine schools of the 
cities. 


182 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


IMPROVEMENT OF THE ONE-Room SCHOOL 


Of course in many sections hills or mountains or 
streams or extremely bad roads render the consolidated 
school an impossibility because of transportation diffi- 
culties. But no situation is ever so bad that the women 
of the neighborhood, if they are really determined, can- 
not make great improvements in the housing of their 
children during school hours. A Pennsylvania farm 
woman tells of her experience with such a situation: 


One afternoon, responding to a note from our teacher, some 
twenty other mothers and myself visited the school. It was a 
rainy day when every sound, every little irritation, was mag- 
nified to distracting proportions. We found our sixty-three 
children crowded into one muddy, gray, cheerless room— 
many single seats holding two of the tinier pupils. The stove 
smoked. The drab of the windows was accentuated by clear 
designs smeared on by fingers exploring for a view outside. 
One slip of a girl was pluckily holding all these little savages 
in good humor, even in average interest in their work. Usu- 
ally, after the school day she did the janitor work, but to-day 
she took the time to talk very plainly to us. Rumors of im- 
pudence, bad language and a desultory attitude toward school 
work had reached us, but, like all mothers, we were slow to 
believe that it was our children and not the Browns’ or the 
Smiths’ who were at fault. We could not understand why 
our children did not like to go to school. What normal child 
would? There was nothing there to inspire any loyalty, in- 
terest or admiration. 

Not a woman of us would have stood such conditions in 
our homes. Yet we were sending our children there seven 
hours daily for eight of the most impressionable years of 


THE SCHOOL 183 


their lives, simply because we had never been interested 
enough to see for ourselves just what kind of a place our 
school was. 

With our own hands and money we cleaned, painted and 
tinted the room, made bright eretonne curtains and hung 
some real pictures. The children voted to have nasturtiums 
for the decorative subject and cut them from brilliant paper 
for appliquéd borders. The scarred seats and wood work are 
painted nasturtium leaf green. The walls are soft yellow 
with brighter-hued appliquéd blooms. The proceeds of an 
oyster supper bought a music machine and records. Our 
husbands put up swings and teeter boards. The children, 
with real pride, keep the place clean and neat. 


Sometimes the farm women arrange to give a play or 
some other entertainment from the proceeds of which 
they buy paint and varnish and blinds for the interior 
of the neglected school building and, with the help of 
the teacher and the older children, wield the brushes 
and put up the curtains themselves. Very frequently 
the school library is begun with funds raised by the 
women in the local neighborhood. In one community 
the Grange held a public auction for which everybody 
in the whole community contributed something, ranging 
from a horse to a pumpkin or a hand-made handkerchief. 
The local auctioneer gave his services for nothing and 
the women served a simple lunch. From the proceeds 
of the sale they realized about five hundred dollars which 
they spent for domestic science equipment for the school. 
Sometimes a pageant or operetta is given by the local 
people. And sometimes the boys in the manual training 
department and the girls in the sewing-classes use their 


184 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


skill to make simple but useful articles for sale to in- 
crease the school equipment. They can also use their 
training to good advantage in putting up shelves, repair- 
ing the desks and sewing fresh curtains for the school- 
room. 

It is true that all such improvements should be made 
by the legally authorized school authorities, with the 
money paid for school taxes, and wherever possible the 
better conditions should be brought about in this way. 
But if the district is so poor or the local political situ- 
ation is such that this cannot be brought about, volunteer 
work is necessary. And the improvement of the school- 
house by the women of the neighborhood often does 
much to waken the people to the needs of their children, 
and then public sentiment has its effect upon the school 
authorities. Many a country woman has made her first 
step into political life by leading the other women in a 
crusade for better schools. After which her ability is 
so well recognized that she is elected upon the local 
board and then to the county positions, and in time she 
ean exert a large influence upon the improvement of 
the schools in other neighborhoods. 

Probably the worst feature of the one-room school is 
its poor facilities for heating and ventilation. Those 
of us who attended a country school have many an 
unpleasant memory of the stuffy schoolroom smells. 
I remember well the red-hot stove in the middle 
of the room with sickening heat waves in the air 
about it, the stench of wet clothing steaming in the 
heat, the windows and doors shut tight against drafts, 


THE SCHOOL 185 


and the attendant headaches and generally mean feel- 
ings which were the usual thing after a day at school. 
Yet this was in a neighborhood where no one used a stove 
for heating a room at home because of the belief that 
stove heat was not so healthful as the heat from an 
open fire. But the fathers and mothers had not ap- 
parently the slightest compunction about sentencing 
their children to six or seven hours a day in a stove- 
heated room, without the least attempt at ventilation. 
The condition was so bad that one of these country 
children, when a musty old closet was opened for clean- 
ing, remarked, ‘‘That smells just like our school.’’ Of 
course the parents had no intention of cruelty. They 
had merely grown used to conditions as they existed. 
They thought that the school was good enough and felt 
little responsibility for making it better. 

It seems to me that the schoolhouse in any neighbor- 
hood should have the same standards of comfort and 
healthfulness as the better homes of that neighborhood. 
This does not mean that the furnishings should be rich 
or costly,—that is not necessary for either comfort or 
health,—but the seats should be as comfortable as those 
upon which the children sit at home. The walls should 
be tinted in a light color, that is pleasing to the eyes, 
with an occasional good picture for variety. The floor 
should have its cracks well filled and should be oiled or 
painted regularly. Fresh air and proper heat should 
be provided, individual drinking cups and individual 
hand towels and a supply of good water. There should 
be windows enough for plenty of light properly falling 


186 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


on books and blackboards. And certainly it is not too 
much to ask that everything be kept reasonably clean! 
Brooms, mops, pails, cloths, soap should all be provided 
for cleaning just as in a home. Yet how many of the 
one-room country schools in America can measure up 
to this simple and reasonable standard? Wherever 
they do not, it seems to me it is primarily the task of 
the women of the neighborhood to see that they do. The 
teacher herself will probably have many suggestions for 
bettering the school, or if she is young and inex- 
perienced, the local leaders can learn much from any 
good book on how to solve the practical problems of the 
rural school. 

After these housekeeping methods have been applied 
to the¥%one-room school, the next step should be the ad- 
dition, if possible, of a second room. Even a small room 
will be a tremendous help in the work of the school day. 
It can serve as a cloakroom, as a workshop, as a store- 
room for supplies of all kinds, as a place for small 
groups of children to study their lessons together, as a 
lunchroom, and as a general outlet for all the activities 
which are impossible in a one-room school. And if the 
schoolhouse is used also for community purposes the 
extra room will be most convenient for a cloakroom and 
committee room. If the new room is built upon the 
right-hand side of the building, the cutting off of light 
from the windows will do no harm as the light should 
always fall over the left shoulder of the pupil. When 
necessary, extra windows can be cut at the left side or 
rear of the seats so that sufficient hight will be admitted 
even in gloomy weather. 


THE SCHOOL 187 


Tur ScHOoL-YARD 


I used to wonder when I was a child why it was that 
our school-yard would never grow anything. The fields 
around it made excellent crops, and the corners of the 
worm fences along the roadsides put forth such a varied 
and luxurious growth that they were a constant joy to 
me on my way to and from school. But the school- 
yard was positively barren—nothing but the scraggliest 
weeds and the prickliest sand-briers ever grew there, 
and for the most part it was hard yellow clay with 
Sharp cinders here and there, ready to give a vicious 
Scrape to our knees and elbows whenever we fell down. 
It could not have been from the trampling of many 
little feet because in fact we played most of our recess 
games out on the softer dust of the road. There seemed 
a strange blight upon the school-yard, and I have often 
wondered since whether that is always the effect of 
rural education upon the soil! Even in communities 
where the cemetery is kept in good sod and green with 
vines and bushes I have noticed this same condition. 
Of course, it is right to show respect to the dead, but it 
seems to me that the children of a community are even 
more important than its graves. 

It need not be a very difficult or expensive under- 
taking to beautify the school yard. In the spring the 
ground can be plowed and fertilized and put into con- 
dition for planting, then good grass seed sowed and 
vines and bushes planted. Native varieties are usually 
best because of their vigorous growth and because they 
will serve as a textbook for many a future lesson in 


188 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


nature study. One school yard which I know has the 
tall fence at the rear covered with native bittersweet 
which forms a pleasant green background in the spring, 
and in the fall is a glowing mass of color, besides furnish- 
ing winter bouquets of the bright berries for the deco- 
ration of the schoolroom. Daffodils and peonies and 
a few other hardy old-fashioned flowers will add a note 
of color in the springtime. Several of the State col- 
leges of agriculture have made a special study of school 
ground planting because they have noticed that the 
school-yard is usually one of the most neglected spots 
in the whole country-side. A letter to your own 
State college will bring you helpful suggestions about 
school-yard planting. This task, especially, is a good 
one for community effort. The teacher feels com- 
paratively little interest in it since she seldom knows 
Whether she will teach the same school the next year. 
And besides that, it is useless for her to do planting 
in the spring unless someone in the neighborhood will 
take enough interest to see that the grass is cut and 
the plantings cared for during the summer. 

But once the school yard has been put in shape the 
teacher should be given to understand that she is ex- 
pected to train the children to keep it so. However 
carefully a child is trained at home, he cannot grow up 
with a consideration for the rights of others if he is 
allowed to tear up and destroy at will in the school yard. 
This training in the rights of public property is 
as much a part of the teacher’s task as training in read: 
ing or arithmetic. And most country teachers so dis- 
like the barren environment in which they are earning 


THE SCHOOL | 189 


their daily bread that they are glad to codperate in 
every way possible in the beautification of their sur- 
roundings. Once the neighborhood interest has been 
aroused in the project, it will not take long to provide 
good sanitary toilets, with a screen of evergreens around 
them, a sightly coal house, a good cement walk to the 
door—laid under the direction of some farmer who 
has had experience in mixing cement—a neat fence 
and a free-swinging gate. Even the children can take 
part in painting the fence, picking up stones and rub- 
bish and putting the yard in order, but it will take 
continual training by both parents and teachers if they 
are to learn to keep it in order. 


THE ScHoot TRAINING 


Important as is the good housekeeping of the 
country schoolhouse and the improvement of the school 
grounds,.even more important are the lessons which are 
taught the children from day to day. It is true that 
the general course is that prescribed by the State, but 
always the local people can have a considerable influence 
on the methods of teaching, if they work with the 
teacher of the school. This is one of the purposes 
for which the Parent-Teacher Associations are formed 
in many localities. The parents and teacher get to- 
gether and talk over the needs of the children and be- 
tween them work out the best ways of meeting them. 
But before improvement in the teaching can go very 
far, it is necessary for the parents to know something 
of what they want their children to be taught, and why. 


190 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


First of all, it seems to me a country school should 
be a country school. Its teachings should begin always 
with the actual experiences of the children on the farm 
and in the home. All the things that they learn about 
animals, about plants, in their play, and in bringing up 
the cows and other daily tasks, should be made the 
basis of their work, and their knowledge of nature should 
be added to with every day in school. It is a shame 
to our system of education for a child to live in the 
country and yet know so little of the things about him. 
This would necessitate in the teacher some knowledge 
of botany and zodlogy and other natural sciences, and 
in the school library simple reference books with color 
plates on birds, trees, flowers, the smaller wild animals, 
butterflies, etc. With this equipment, even the young 
teacher can open the children’s minds to many things, 
and teach them the valuable lesson that not only ma- 
terial wealth but also intellectual and spiritual wealth 
are to be found in the country. 

I remember in my own childhood how much I wanted 
to know the names and the life-story of everything. 
But no one was able to tell me. No one seemed to know, 
the teacher least of all, the names of the tall mosses 
that grew along the fence rows, the hundreds of plants 
that grew and blossomed and faded along our way to 
school, or the names of the many birds that came to 
the big maple-tree near the schoolhouse door. Arithme- 
tic was stupid stuff to me, but I would have worked 
eagerly from morning till night if I had had the chance, 
studying and classifying the natural life about me. In 
spite of this handicap, I learned to know the wild 


THE SCHOOL 191 


flowers. Not a thing bloomed in all the woods that I 
did not learn a great deal about—but I had to name 
most of them for myself. Some of my names for them 
were fairly good and some of them amusing, but of 
course they were not the right ones and I found them 
a great handicap in all my later study of botany. In 
fact, so fixed did my childish names for them become 
in my mind that even yet I can seldom get the botanical 
name for one of the common wild-flowers without a 
mental struggle. 

Nature study should not only be taught constantly, 
but the child’s everyday experiences should be made the 
basis of much of the other work. Arithmetic becomes 
much more interesting if it is kept in terms of bushels 
of wheat, bales of hay, material for dresses, plans for 
carpentry, etc., instead of dealing with things the 
children have never heard of before. In some country 
schools the parents are asked to codperate by suggesting 
problems which are really problems in the home. For 
problems in addition, for instance, the child can make 
an order for vegetable seed, writing the letter himself, 
finding the various kinds of vegetables in a seed cata- 
logue and adding up the prices for the total. In sub- 
traction, quantities of farm products sold and quantities 
remaining in the bin may serve as a basis. It is not 
difficult to teach in this way if the teacher herself has 
had farm experience and can devote sufficient time to her 
classes. Often she would be glad to do it if she felt that 
her efforts would be appreciated. Later in the course, 
the problems can deal with gardening, the buying and 
shipping of cattle, percentages of gain in cattle, the 


192 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


draining of fields, and all the buying and selling of the 
farm, leading up to a thorough course in farm eost 
accounting and domestic budgeting—a course which 
should prepare the boy and girl to become the real book- 
keepers of the farm and home. 

A good course in English is particularly desirable for 
eountry children because an ineffective use of language 
is often their greatest handicap. They hear a careless 
speech at home, and they are often taught other bad 
language habits in the schoolroom. The result is that 
they have so narrow and limited a vocabulary that they 
are embarrassed in the presence of people who have had 
good speech training. They should have a thorough 
and continued drill in speaking clearly and with words 
properly pronounced, in spelling, in reading with ease 
and understanding, and in writing down their thoughts 
on paper. If this is accomplished, the usual lessons 
in formal English, diagramming, and the like may well 
be dispensed with. An ability to read quickly and 
easily is one of the greatest pleasures of the country 
person. Whatever he lacks in other ways, the world 
of books is always with him, if he is able to enter into 
it. In his hours of leisure he can, through reading, 
see the whole world and sit in the company of all the 
ereat people of the ages. He will never feel lonely even 
if he does not see other people for many days together, 
and he ean constantly improve his farm practices by 
keeping up with the best which agricultural science has 
to offer. Indeed, it is the basis for all his later learning 
in every subject. 

But though all the subjects should have a country 


THE SCHOOL 193 


bearing this does not mean that the teaching of agri- 
eulture should be the chief end of the country school. 
Indeed I think it should not be. There has been much 
discussion for years about the matter of teaching agri- 
culture in the public schools in order to ‘‘keep the boy 
on the farm.’’ I think the most disastrous thing that 
eould happen to country life would be to keep all the 
farm boys on the farm. There are too many people 
upon the farms now in the United States—that is the 
real reason for the present low prices of agricultural 
products. And I think it is no more desirable for all 
the sons of farmers to be farmers than for all the sons 
of ministers to be ministers or of lawyers to be lawyers. 
In every child that is born there is some particular gift 
or aptitude which should be developed as fully as possi- 
ble for his own good and for the good of the nation. 
This means that on the farms will be born ministers and 
lawyers and architects and musicians and scientists and 
artists, and that each one should have his chance to de- 
velop that thing in himself which is most pleasing to him. 
The real grievance of the farm people has been that in 
our school system the science of agriculture has been 
given so little attention that the boy who was primarily 
fitted for agricultural pursuits did not stand an equal 
chance with his brothers who preferred the other 
professions. 

In fact, what the country women want for their 
children is as nearly as possible an equal chance in edu- 
eation with the children of the cities. Their early train- 
ing should be based upon different experiences, of course, 
but in the end they should study the same great liter- 


194 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


ature and the same fine pictures and the same music, 
and have the same historical background and the same 
methods of speaking and reading and writing that are 
used in the city schools. They would not for any- 
thing have their children without those things, any 
more than they would wish their children to speak a 
different language from that of the city children. The 
best thing about our agricultural situation is that there 
is a continual flow from the farms to the cities and back 
again. Many thousands of the country children in the 
schools to-day will be the city dwellers of the future. 
And we wish to send them in without handicaps, with 
the same background of culture, so that they will 
have an even chance in the race of life. 

But the country child should learn much about the 
place where he is, just as the city child learns about the 
city streets, the municipal government, fire protection, 
the police system, ete. Indeed the more he learns about 
the general country life the better he will be equipped 
for his future life wherever he may be. He should 
understand what is meant by codperative selling and 
buying, he should know the duties of the sheriff and of 
other country and town officers, and how he can best 
perform the duties of citizenship so that he can benefit 
the whole community and further the common good. 
It is in such studies in early life that ambition is born in 
the child’s mind. 

And the country girl should certainly know some- 
thing of all the many subjects discussed in this book, 
because these are the things which go to make up a 
country woman’s living. For the child has always two 


THE SCHOOL 195 


great needs. One is to develop the very best that is 
within himself, chiefly for his own sake. The other is 
to learn how to work with others and for others so that 
by corporate effort he can secure things which he could 
never be able to secure for himself. These are the two 
things which go to make an intelligent, patriotic and 
high-thinking citizen. And it is the second of these 
which has been most neglected in the country schools 
of the past and should be emphasized in the schools of 
the future. 


HEALTH WORK 


Another subject that has been greatly neglected in 
the country schools is that of health. Although some 
physiology has been studied, it has seldom had much 
bearing on everyday matters such as cleaning the teeth, 
Sleeping with the windows open, and eating good 
healthful food. What is needed is a simple course in 
hygiene and sanitation, with all the everyday problems 
included, rather than a study of the various organs of 
the body or the articulation of the bones. Even if one’s 
own child is carefully brought up on health principles 
in the home, this does not protect him from infection by 
the carelessness of those who have no such training. So 
every mother must see to it that all the children are 
given adequate instruction if her child is to keep well. 
The equipment for health teaching includes good scales 
for weighing and charts for posture and weights and 
heights for boys and girls. The study soon becomes like 
a real game to the children and they watch their in- 


196 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


dividual health charts with much interest, codperate 
with the teacher in doing the ‘‘health chores’’ and 
trying to build up strong and healthy bodies. And - 
the children from the lower-class homes of the neighbor- 
hood often influence their families to better sanitary and 
hygienic practices so that the health level of the whole 
community is raised somewhat. 

As a part of the health work in the school in many 
country places, the farm women’s clubs have introduced 
the hot noon lunch. Mothers have long realized that the 
cold lunch at school, gulped down in a few bites as the 
child rushed out to the playground, was a menace to 
the health of the country school child. Now, by joining 
together and gathering a few dollars for equipment, 
they place a small oil-stove and a few utensils and staple 
supplies at hand for the teacher to use. Each day the 
teacher or an older pupil prepares one hot nourishing 
dish, for which supplies are brought from the homes of 
the children, and each child is-served with a helping of 
this in addition to the usual sandwiches brought from 
home. Cocoa, cream of corn soup, cream pea or bean 
soup, potato soup, tomato soup, corn and potato chowder, 
and sealloped potatoes, are some of the dishes recom- 
mended as nourishing and easy to prepare under school 
conditions. 

The following ‘‘ Rules of Etiquette for the Hot Lunch’’ 
are given in the West Virginia extension bulletin on the 
hot lunch: 


1. Air the room before meals are served. 2. Children 
should wash the hands before eating. 3. Place paper nap- 


THE SCHOOL 197 


kin or clean square of cloth on desk for a tablecloth and 
arrange lunch on this. 4. Eat lunch in right order, with 
sweets last. 5. A fork or a spoon should be used to carry 
food to the mouth. 6. The children should be taught to eat 
slowly and quietly. Having the children remain in: their 
seats will prevent hasty eating which may cause indigestion. 
7. Children should be permitted to drink water with their 
lunch, but should not be allowed to swallow their food hur- 
riedly by washing it down with water. 


When these rules are well observed the children learn 
to follow the example set by their teacher and eat quietly 
and neatly. Children who are inclined to be finicky 
about their eating often overcome bad food habits be- 
cause of their desire to eat what all the other children 
are eating. Thus they learn to like nutritious foods 
which their mothers could never get them to touch at 
home. The noon lunch is a real health service. It has 
been shown in many rural schools that the weight of the 
children increased somewhat and the days absent on 
account of sickness decreased considerably, after the 
introduction of the hot noon lunch. The work is linked 
with the other school subjects by a study of the nutrition 
of the foods served, how they were produced, and trans- 
ported; and by figuring the cost of the food, and the 
amounts of supplies needed. 


WIDER ACTIVITIES 


Another important study for the country child is that 
of relating his own little world to the world at large. 
He should learn the story of how all the agricultural 


7 


198 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


products, as they leave the farm, are transported long 
distances, changed in the factories and finally serve the 
needs of the world. Thus he sees in prospect all 
the people for whom the farmer works. Then he should 
learn of all the people who, under our modern condi- 
tions, work for the farmer; the factories which spin and 
weave and fashion his clothes, the miners who dig the 
iron and coal, and the factories which shape the farm 
implements and all the furnishings for the country 
home. And he should understand something of the 
problems of labor and transportation and handling and 
marketing all these products. In this way the country 
child will learn of his dependence upon the rest of the 
world, as well as of the great value of the service which 
the farmer renders to mankind. 

In many small communities the schoolhouse is almost 
the only social center and it is always the principal social 
center for the children, so that any group meetings 
which the school can foster are of great worth to the 
community. Often the Boys’ Pig and Corn Clubs and 
the Girls’ Canning or Tomato Clubs are formed in the 
sehool. The playground activities are frequently worked 
up into an annual Play Festival which is held in the 
spring. Such a festival makes an interesting community 
event and closes the school year with enthusiasm. The 
events may include all the various playground games, 
contests of many different kinds, rope skipping, folk 
dancing, and some simple masques or pageantry in 
costume. In fact, anything which the children can do 
and enjoy doing can be included in the program, which 


~ 


THE SCHOOL 199 


can be given either at an afternoon celebration or as the 
chief attraction of a basket-dinner meeting or field day. 
Dramatie work is also possible even in the one-room 
school if the teacher is interested in it. 

One of the greatest needs of the country community 
is usually a local high school, because the parents can- 
not bring themselves to send their children away 
from home at such a tender age. Unless there are rela- 
tives living in town to whom the child can be sent, his 
further education is apt to be delayed, at least, when he 
would have attended a nearer high school had there 
been one. Besides that, the parents often feel that this 
exposure of the young child to the ‘‘town idea’’ before 
he is able to think for himself, almost inevitably means 
that he will go to the city to live in after life. And 
while they wish him to be trained as the city children 
are trained, they regret having to send him to an en- 
vironment in which the occupation of his father does 
not have an equally good show with other occupations 
in his training. 

One of the best things about the consolidated school 
is that with the better equipment and the more efficient 
teaching it is a simple matter to add at least a year 
or two of high school work to the school course. And 
the interest of the work in the larger school holds the 
pupils’ interest so that nearly all the children in the 
neighborhood finish the course. In the high school the 
curriculum may be exactly like that of the city high 
schools, with a good course in agriculture as one of the 
vocational studies, so that the bey who expects to stay 


200 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


upon the farm will have the training which he will most 
need. Yet at the same time he should learn the cultural 
background of the race which will fit him for a more 
complete and understanding experience wherever he 
may be or whatever he may do in life. 

In fact, I think that, after a thorough fundamental 
schooling, it is Just as well if the boy and girl go to the 
city to finish their education. Even under the best con- 
ditions in the country the city will have much to offer 
in further training. Its rushing life gives a .stimula- 
tion to the brain which has been trained in childhood 
among quieter surroundings, leading it to develop with 
great rapidity. For this reason it seems to me that 
perhaps an ideal education is that which keeps the boy 
and girl in the country in early life and sends them to 
the city for their later studies. In childhood they have 
time to dream and to think the long, long thoughts of 
youth and then they see in the city the great oppor- 
tunities which are waiting for the able and eager 
worker. And the city which often stuns the mind of 
childhood will in later years merely stimulate it. The 
boy who sees a street-car every day, for instance, takes 
it for granted and scarcely notices it at all. But to the 
boy from the country it is a miracle and he is not con- 
tent until he has thought out for himself all the prob- 
lems it suggests. 

With such a complete training for our country boys 
and girls, they will undoubtedly hold in the future the 
ereat place in the world’s affairs which their forbears 
have held in the past. In the city pulpits, and on the 
judge’s bench, in the sculptor’s studio and the archi- 


THE SCHOOL 201 


teet’s office and in the great business positions of the 
world they will bring to their tasks the clean high- 
spirited dreams of the country-bred child, with a 
strength of mind and body great enough to make many 
of them come true for the advancement of humanity. 


CHAPTER IX 


THE CHURCH 


roads in America in these days that the country 
church, as we have known it in the past, is falling 
into decay. And it does not take the reports of ex- 
tensive religious surveys to convince one that perhaps 
two thirds of the country and village churches in the 
United States are either losing ground or are standing 
still in membership and in influence in their communi- 
ties. Every country woman has felt the effects of it in 
her own church home, like all the others striving to hold 
out against the forces of disintegration of the present 
day. Or perhaps she sees the church of her forbears 
standing deserted and bat-haunted at the country cross- 
roads—one of the saddest sights of the long highway. 
We eannot help but grieve over this apparent weak- 
ness of an institution which we have loved, and which 
has had so great an influence for good as has the old- 
time country church. We remember how it furnished 
an inspiration to many a man and many a woman who 
would otherwise have grown weary and despondent in 
the long, hard journey. And how the simple sermon 
which they heard on Sunday, linking up the humble 


daily duties of the farm with the plan of the Infinite 
202 


| is evident to any one who travels the country 


THE CHURCH 203 


and the Eternal, gave their lives added dignity and 
meaning. How the good old hymns, the spirit of devo- 
tion and reverence, and the whole atmosphere of the 
group of earnest people gathered to worship in the little 
country church, were great forces for good in their 
lives. The members were few in number and lived 
very near together. Theirs was the intimate religion 
of an intimate little group not many times larger than 
the family itself, and it made a close bond of love and 
affection which put real meaning into the old hymn 
they loved, ‘‘Blest be the Tie that Binds.’’ 

Yet we may remember also that there were times 
when the old-fashioned church seemed too small for its 
own best good. It was built upon the cross-roads or 
other convenient spot, to serve those who were within 
walking or driving distance. Frequently the church 
was dominated, and not always for its good, by one 
family, including the married sons and daughters. In- 
deed it was frequently dominated by one individual. I 
have known country churches which were always 
spoken of locally as ‘‘Old Man Brown’s echurch’’ or 
““Mrs. Green’s meeting-house.’’ Its religion became a 
sort of clan religion in which family prejudices played 
a large part. Even a slight difference in views was not 
tolerated, particularly as to the form of the service. 
And the only alternative for those who desired some- 
thing different in their religion was to build another 
church at the same cross-roads and hold their own serv- 
ices. But in this, too, the religion took on a personal 
tone, and sometimes the community almost entirely lost 
sight of the teachings of the neighborly and kindly 


204 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Nazarene in the strife of their personal animosities. 
And that He once said, ‘‘By this shall all men know 
that ye are my disciples if ye love one another.’’ 

And the denominations were eternally at war. It 
often seemed that every brand of faith was trying fran- 
tically to establish a church on the same cross-roads. 
As many as five churches have actually been built in 
such a situation, with scarcely enough people to form 
the congregation of one, and a tiny country village 
sometimes has as many as seven. They could be main- 
tained at all only by the most energetic efforts, and the 
gaining of a new member by one of them was the cause 
of as much bitterness as if the saving of a sinner were 
not always to the glory of God. If some young 
boy of a family joined a different church, to which he 
was by temperament more inclined, he was fairly 
thrown into outer darkness by his relatives. And the 
saddest part of it was that often in the same county 
there were communities which had no church at all. 
Indeed there is no doubt that an over-churched condi- 
tion has greatly damaged the cause of Christ in many 
neighborhoods. When the surrounding population has 
been falling off rapidly as it has been in most coun- 
try districts, it is inevitable that many of the existing 
churches should be given up. They merely go the way 
of all things which are built upon an insufficient foun- 
dation. They fail because they are not big enough to 
live. 

For the present era is one of big things and it is not 
surprising that the country church has responded to 
the challenge. Changes in transportation since the 


THE CHURCH 205 


days of the mud road and the ox-cart have made it pos- 
sible for a vigorous church to serve many times as many 
people as did the meeting-house of the old days. Surely 
there is no reason why a church should not reach as far 
with its influence as does a good store, or a creamery, 
or a motion-picture house. With a larger member- 
ship it can undertake a broader program, with a full- 
time preacher in charge, and accomplish things which 
were quite impossible to the little old-time church. If, 
as the change is made, many of the old one-roomed 
churches stand silent and deserted it does not necessar- 
ily mean that the country people are becoming less re- 
ligious, but rather that they are turning away from 
some of the faults of the churches of the past and try- 
ing to build a better church for the future. They are 
looking forward instead of back. The question which 
most interests the average farm woman is, ‘‘How can I 
secure good religious influences for my children in this 
neighborhood ?’’ And she is doing everything in her 
power to provide for them a vital religious training. 
Of the state of the country church to-day one can 
learn a great deal from the results of a recent survey. 
At the beginning of the Interchurch World Movement 
a Town and Country Survey was begun, and before the 
work was discontinued survey groups had been organ- 
ized in 2,400 of the 3,000 counties in the United States, 
and more or less complete reports were forwarded to 
headquarters. After the work was given up for lack of 
funds the Committee on Social and Religious Surveys 
took over these reports and tabulated them and is now 
giving some of the results to the public. These reports 


206 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


show that in many cases, while several churches are 
gradually losing ground from year to year, another 
church of the same denomination in a similar loca- 
tion is growing rapidly and the country people are 
flocking to it for spiritual help. What makes the dif- 
ference? No one can say in any particular instance. 
And yet when thousands of churches are ranked ac- 
cording to their gains in membership and power in 
the community, one ean discover some of the ele- 
ments that seem to be making the difference in 
results. And from them we ean learn not only the 
kinds of churches which are making the most progress 
to-day, but also what will probably be the country 
church of to-morrow. Let us notice some of the charac- 
teristics of the churches which are growing to-day. 
The growing church is usually the larger chureh— 
serving a membership perhaps ten times larger than 
that of the old-time church. This enlarging of the field 
in the prosperous churches has been brought about in 
many different ways. Sometimes the governing boards 
of denominations, realizing that the community was 
over-churched, have agreed to close up the dying 
churches and leave the field to one. The gains of that 
denomination are then offset by a corresponding loss in 
other over-churched communities. Sometimes, with the 
development of good roads and the general use of auto- 
mobiles, it has been possible to combine two or more 
small churches of the same faith. When the churches 
are frame buildings they have even been carried on 
rollers to some point between the two communities, and 
one used for church services, the other for Sunday 


THE CHURCH 207 


School and community meetings. Thus both congrega- 
tions make a contribution to the development of a larger 
church which can have a larger influence. 

In still other communities the country churches have 
all been given up and their membership has joined 
forces with the larger churches of the nearest town. 
There seems to be a growing tendency toward this in 
some of the States, and it has its advantages if the town 
and country people can put aside their differences in 
point of view and really unite in their religion. Per- 
haps one reason for this tendency is that the country 
people are going to town more and more for their en- 
tertainment and instruction. And once the go-to-town 
habit has been formed, the real country church has little 
chance to survive. Many country women write me that 
they are losing their churches very rapidly because the 
people are near enough to attend services in the city. 
The consolidated school, too, is teaching the country peo- 
ple the benefits of larger units for instruction. So the 
idea of a consolidated church tends to grow in their 
minds. For transportation of members who have no 
conveyance of their own, the school busses are used in 
some localities. Thus no one is deprived of the service 
because of lack of transportation. 

In other communities the rural churches of all de- 
nominations have combined to form a community 
church of no denomination. The preacher is chosen for 
his service to the community rather than because he rep- 
sents an organized religion. This type of church has 
been very successful in some neighborhoods, making for 
a much greater friendliness among the people, and sav- 


208 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


ing much lost motion in carrying out various projects — 
for the good of the community. But so many diffi- 
culties are in its way that this plan has not been as 
generally successful as at first seemed probable. 

A. more successful form of codperation has been the 
federation of the churches. From three to five churches 
of the community decide to join forces for the sake of 
better equipment, without giving up their denomina- 
tional connection. By combining they can erect a 
larger building, or divide the use of buildings already 
available. The whole community comes together for 
general services—a thing that seldom occurred before in 
those communities except for a funeral or a wedding. 
And yet each denomination is free to hold its own serv- 
ices in the church as often as it pleases. The affairs of 
the federated churches are managed by a governing 
board, made up of an equal number of members from 
each denomination. 

These are some of the plans used to give the church 
a wider reach in country communities. Other plans 
can be worked out in practice, but whatever the plan, if 
the country church is to survive it must find some way 
to serve more people. It can do more and live or do 
less and perish, for there is no such thing as standing 
still in life. Any institution which does not make prog- 
ress is going backward. And it would be a foolish 
person, indeed, who would think that the services in the 
little country church to-day have the same power as 
those of fifty years ago. Times have changed greatly, 
and the call to a wider field has been felt by the earnest 
young man who, fifty years ago, would have been a . 


THE CHURCH 209 


country preacher—just as it has been felt by others in 
every walk of life. And the only hope for the country 
church of to-day to get a man of the same earnestness 
and training, is to provide him that wider field within 
the country. community. 

The country church which is growing is not so 
strongly denominational as were most of the churches of 
the past. The successful church may be of one de- 
nomination—indeed it usually is—but its chief end is 
always service to the community rather than service 
to the denomination. The churches are finding that a 
spirit of tolerance toward other faiths is necessary if 
the young people are to be appealed to. For the young 
folks of to-day reserve the right to make up their minds 
for themselves in religious matters as in other things, 
and few of them will endure a religion which divides, 
instead of unifies, God’s people in His service. And 
they are seldom inclined to take notice of fine denom- 
inational distinctions. Even the older people are com- 
ing to see that the church is no longer a battle ground 
against all the other creeds and most of their neighbors. 
They do not approve of sermons which would offend 
visitors not of their own faith. Arguments over reli- 
gious matters are much less common. A contentious old 
man said recently that he felt sure his neighbors 
were all doomed to damnation, because in the whole 
community he could not stir up a real old-fashioned 
hammer-and-tongs fight about baptism and foreordina- 
tion! Whether this is a change for the worse or the 
better, it is true that the change has come in very many 
communities. The emphasis of the age is upon action— 


210 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


not upon creed. The country people are feeling the 
need of many things which the church could supply if 
it would. They feel that, as Roosevelt is reported to 
have said, ‘‘There are targets a-plenty for us all to 
shoot at, without shooting at each other!’’ And the 
parents of growing families realize that their children 
must have an active religious belief if they are to hold 
out against the multiplying demoralizing influences 
of the present day. They want their young people 
to be kept so busy in their leisure hours with those 
things which are good, that they will not feel the urge 
toward the many things which are bad for their 
development. 

It is this religious action, as well as religious wor- 
ship, which the growing church undertakes to furnish. 
For the church of to-day believes that the Kingdom of 
Heaven is to come upon earth, and that we are working 
toward it here and now. And that the best way for 
a soul to grow in grace is by acts of brotherly love and 
cooperation with those about him. It gives up nothing 
of the good in the past, but it adds to that many a new 
opportunity for spiritual growth and for Christian fel- 
lowship. And its larger program so increases its re- 
sources that it can give its members the religious life 
and give it more abundantly. 

It finds a place for all the newcomers in the commun- 
ity; even the immigrant peasants find that the church 
has adapted itself to their needs and made a place for 
them. The young people are a growing part of the 
church because it recognizes all their yearnings for ac- 
tivity. It does not force them to take an adult point of 


THE CHURCH 211 


view—that false system which in the old days rendered 
it almost as impossible for a vigorous youth to enter the 
church work as for a camel to go through the eye of a 
needle. For the doctrine of the growing church is 
always ‘‘Do’’ instead of ‘‘Don’t.’? With so much 
that ought to be done and so many innocent ways that 
country children can amuse themselves, certainly the 
church can keep them so busy it will need to waste little 
breath warning them about the things which are bad. 
Indeed the young people are not much inclined toward 
naughtiness in any country community—it is said that 
very few of the children in the reform schools come 
from the country districts, perhaps because their out- 
door life gives them freedom of activity without com- 
mitting crimes against their neighbors. But that is no 
reason why the social needs of the country young peo- 
ple should be so much neglected. And the growing 
country church now gives its influence for a healthy ac- 
tivity—physical, mental, and spiritual—to keep all its 
young people in the way which leads to the Kingdom 
of God. 

The men of the growing church are kept busy, too, 
at tasks big enough to be worthy of them. They man- 
age the finances of the organization, perhaps by a bud- 
get system or an every-member assessment, so that the 
regular expenses are met without strain. They act 
as big brothers to the boys of the community, oversee- 
ing all their activities, and with the assistance of the 
pastor, conduct a regular open forum for the discussion 
of religious questions as related to life in that 
neighborhood. 


212 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


The women are just as busy as in the old days, but 
they are relieved from some of their financial worries. 
They give up the role of Martha for the réle of Mary 
—that ‘‘better part’’ of which the Saviour speaks—and 
turn from money-making to more spiritual endeavors. 
They have time to lead the young people in their re- 
ligious work, to study child-training, and the best meth- 
ods of teaching religion in the home. They see that 
a rest room and nursery are provided, where the mothers 
of little children can be comfortable if they must re- 
tire during the service. They sometimes undertake 
special studies of the art of home-making or, if their 
economic needs are great, codperation in selling the 
products of their farms and gardens. 

For instance, the women of the aid society of a little 
Western country church have formed an alliance with 
the aid society of a church of the same denomination in 
the nearest city for marketing codperatively. Each week 
they make up a list of products with their prices, which 
is passed around at the city women’s meeting and an 
order written out. This is filled by the country women 
and delivered at the city church just in time for the 
next mecting. Baskets and other containers are re- — 
turned the next week. In this way, the country women 
find a market for baskets of mixed vegetables, eggs, 
butter, cottage cheese, old-fashioned flowers, walnuts 
and hickory nuts, wild berries, pawpaws, strained 
honey, jellies, pickles and canned goods, many of which 
could not be marketed in any other way. And the 
city women pay less than the prices at the city stores 
and get everything fresh from the farm. Each article 


THE CHURCH 213 


is marked with the name of the woman who sells it, 
so that, if it pleases, new orders can be easily made. 
Many of the women have worked up a good trade in 
Special articles in this way. The two groups of women 
pass suggestions back and forth continually, and thus 
come to know each other’s problems and each other’s 
needs very well. Their motto is the Golden Rule and 
they strive to live up to it in all their dealings with 
each other. ‘‘And that,’’ as one of the country women 
says, ‘is what I call being a real Christian!’’ 

In fact, the church people of the growing church are 
expected to lead in every task for the betterment of the 
community, which is not taken over by some other 
agency. For they realize that in building up the King- 
dom of God upon earth, the highest good of spiritual 
life is often reached through mental and physical de- 
velopment and better economic conditions. Yet they 
are not satisfied with these second-best things, but per- 
severe until the young people under their charge are 
joining with them in bringing in the Kingdom of God 
on earth and developing into fit members of the King- 
dom of God in Heaven. 

The Sunday School of this larger church is a real 
school, with trained teachers, and the children in 
graded classes. It is to be hoped that in the future 
their Bible study classes will meet not only on Sundays 
but several times a week—perhaps with their work rec- 
ognized as an important part of the children’s school- 
ing. Graded mission study classes give the members a 
knowledge of the expansion of the Kingdom in other 
lands. And the minister, as teacher, in special classes, 


214 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


undertakes to make plain to the young people the need 
of a strong personal religion in their lives. 

Needless to say, the minister of the growing church 
gives all his time to the one congregation. At least, the 
Survey shows that a church with a full-time minister 
has a fifty per cent. better chance for growth than the 
church with a part-time minister. And no church can 
be very successful which has only part of a man to do 
a whole man’s work. He knows something of rural so- 
cial service work as well as of theology, so that he can 
jead the people in the application of Christianity to the 
affairs of the community. He need not be trained in 
agriculture, his members can secure that training for 
themselves, but he is at least country-minded so that he 
loves the things of the country as the country-dweller 
loves them. He makes the most of all the references in 
the Bible to the life of the farmer—much of Christ’s 
teaching was to the farmers of His day—and from them 
brings his hearers to a sympathetic understanding of 
His spiritual teaching. For he realizes that the coun- 
try people who go to church on Sunday are there for 
spiritual help, for something to turn their thoughts 
away from their everyday tasks to the Infinite and the 
Eternal. ! 

He finds time, too, for much pastoral work, so that he 
knows his people’s problems at first hand. He not only 
sows the seed of the Gospel in evangelical services or 
in private talks, but he takes time to tend it—as the 
good farmer tends his growing corn—so that it will 
bring forth a bountiful harvest. And even the poorer 
soil of the indifferent members of the community he 


THE CHURCH 215 


strives to improve by the proper kind of tillage. For 
the failures of the country minister in the past have 
been chiefly due to the fact that he was away from his 
work most of the time, and the absent preacher, like the 
absentee landlord, can have no right understanding of 
the local problems. 

The church building of the growing church is much 
larger than the country church of the past—to house 
the greater congregation—though its tall spire still 
points heavenward in quite the old-fashioned way. 
But in a newer fashion it adds comfortable rooms for 
the pastor and the choir and separate Sunday School 
rooms. It is furnished with comfortable pews and a 
good organ, and the interior is so decorated that it 
makes an impression of beauty upon young minds in- 
stead of an impression of ugliness. For the church 
realizes that a child is much more impressed by the 
testimony of its senses than by intellectual appeals. 
And though beauty is neither righteousness nor reli- 
gion, it lies so near to them in the feelings of the human 
heart that it should add its influence to all teachings of 
God and immortality. And perhaps in the country 
church of the future the altar will glimmer with brasses 
and be fragrant with flowers and the light will fall 
softly through stained windows, bringing into the 
church something of the beauty of the world of nature 
which every country person loves—the holy depths of 
the woods and the joyous inspiration of the spring. 

And near the church, if not a part of it, is the 
community gathering-place, equipped for plays and 
moving-pictures and other entertainments, for the serv- 


216 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


ing of dinners, and for the physical training of the 
young people of the neighborhood. This building may 
not be the property of the church alone. It is often a 
joint enterprise between two or more churches, or the 
church and the local Grange, the Boy Scouts and other 
rural social organizations. But the church has a large 
and important share in it and is the leader among the 
other organizations in bettering the social life of the 
whole community. Near it are outdoor playgrounds 
for the children and grounds for athletic games. 

It is true, of course, that not all the growing country 
churches of to-day have all these things. Perhaps no 
one of them has reached the ideal state. Yet most of 
the churches which are making real progress are work- 
ing toward these things, and through them are develop- 
ing a larger service to the country community. And 
theirs will be the leadership in the religious life of the 
eountry people of to-morrow. It is to be hoped, indeed, 
that in them the earnest country boy, who longs to de- 
vote his life to the service of God, will find an open 
door to opportunity that will be a challenge to his spirit 
and his courage. 

So we see very clearly that, although many of the 
little country churches are falling into ruin at the ecross- 
roads, at the same time there is growing vigorously a 
somewhat different type of country chureh. Coun- 
try people are exactly like city people in that they like 
modern, up-to-date institutions. They have a reverence 
for the old, but they realize that since our grandfather’s 
day, country life has moved on, just as surely as has city 
life. Whatever is left unchanged from the last fifty 


THE CHURCH 217 


years is behind the times; it is a misfit in modern coun- 
try life, just as much as horse-cars would be on modern 
city streets. In fact, the most discouraging aspect of 
the country church problem of to-day is that there are 
still so many of the meeting-houses of grandfather’s 
time, quite untouched by the modern spirit. It is cer- 
tainly not to the credit of a community where the farm- 
ing is done with tractors and binders and other im- 
proved machinery to worship God in a building that be- 
longs to the period of the sickle and the flail. It in- 
dicates that their religion is somehow not keeping pace 
with their agriculture. For the people much prefer 
to worship God in pleasant rather than unpleasant 
places. They feel no especial Christianity in the sharp 
edge of a pew, even though it has done equal damage 
to the legs of some of the saints of the past. They en- 
joy pictured windows and good music and good sermons, 
and gladly assemble with the many rather than with the 
few. The only reason that they do not is that they are 
in the grip of poverty, or that they are prevented by 
forces which they are unable to control. 

That the country folks love a good service has been 
demonstrated by their interest in the city church serv- 
ices now being broadcast by radio. Services are broad- 
east regularly from many city churches and thousands 
of country people are listening-in. It is true that 
the result is sometimes that the listener feels a pro- 
found dissatisfaction with conditions in the local places 
of worship. As a farm woman said pointedly, ‘‘Why 
should I go to church to hear a poor sermon when I can 
stay at home and hear a good one?’’ But in the end, 


218 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


I think, the local church, with its Christian fellowship, 
will win if only the church leaders will hear the chal- 
lenge to a broader human service. And since the de- 
nomination of the church broadeasting is often un- 
known to the listener, the radio may be a great power 
in breaking down the barriers of a too-narrow denom- 
inationalism, and thus help to develop the broader view 
of the country church of to-morrow. The danger is 
that in the shift from the old to the new in the country 
church, some communities may have no religious serv- 
ice at all for a considerable period, with all the attend- 
ant evils of a lowered morality. For this reason it is 
important that we hold fast to that which is good in 
the old, while bringing about the new. 

For the country church must be kept up as a living 
force if the nation is to prosper. Its spire must con- 
tinue to point upward to remind men that life has 
height as well as breadth, and that they must take the 
upward climb. The country church of the past has 
performed a great service in sending forth boys and 
girls who, in the midst of great responsibilities, stood 
for the rugged virtues which were taught in the old 
meeting-house at home. Great numbers of successful 
business and professional men of the cities have had 
their religious training in the country church, and a 
majority of the ministers, bishops, and missionaries 
have been country born and reared. The present day 
ehurch will affect the future just as greatly. Though 
the rural districts have now less than half the population 
of the nation, the last census shows that there are two 
and a half million more children in the country and the 


THE CHURCH 219 


villages than in the cities. These children are the 
leaders of the future and on their integrity of character, 
or lack of it, will undoubtedly rest many of the great 
concerns of the nation. So it is imperative that the 
rural church remain a vital force in training the young 
of America. The country church of the future may not 
be exactly like the church of the past. But it will stand 
triumphant for the simple faith of ‘‘Love God and your 
fellow man,’’ which, Lincoln once said, is almost the 
whole of religion. 


CHAPTER X 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 


HE average woman on the farm probably does 
more reading in the course of the year than 
does the average city woman. Even when her 
work is heaviest she can take a bit of time now and then 
to read as she rests, or as she does the churning, or waits 
for something to finish cooking, or for the men to come 
in from the fields. And I have known country women 
who after a hard day’s work in the house and garden 
would sit up most of the night to finish an interesting 
book. Reading is one pleasure which is always at hand 
and of which she never tires. She keeps up with the 
farm papers even better than her husband does, looks 
over the new bulletins, reads the daily paper, and her 
woman’s magazine, besides reading a few books in the 
course of the year. 

She turns to a book particularly for a new point of 
view on life, to see life as someone else sees it, and to 
restore her sense of proportion. The farm women 
who write to me all agree that they sometimes think too 
much about the things immediately under their eyes. 
They stay at home so much, and talk with other people 
so little, that they are in danger of brooding over things 


which under other circumstances would not seem half 
220 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 221 


so important. One of them admits frankly that she 
likes tragic stories best. ‘‘I know it seems mean in 
me,’’ she says, ‘‘but I do like to know that other folks 
are having their troubles, too. And these stories are so 
bad—by the time I have finished, my troubles don’t 
look like anything at all.’’ But most of them seek 
chiefly for courage and inspiration for their daily work. 
A New York farm woman writes: ‘‘The greatest thing 
one gets from reading is the courage to help one hold 
on to the task in hand. Farm life takes so much cour- 
age—it depends on such a variety of unstable things— 
that courage is the biggest asset the farmer’s wife can 
have. The kind of courage to keep sweet when one 
must use green elm-wood for the kitchen range instead 
of coal. If we can get a vision of something beyond the 
faded paper on the kitchen walls and the spot on the 
barn roof where the shingles are off, then we can draw 
breath and take hold of things anew.’’ For this reason 
they particularly enjoy good biographies of women, and 
stories that tell of people who have struggled against 
many things and yet kept their hearts in the midst of 
all their difficulties. If only such books were more 
numerous and could be placed in every farm home! 
Poetry they find inspiring, also. And many a farm 
woman props up a book of verse on the back of the 
kitchen table, where she can memorize a line or two as 
she works. I have known women who could recite 
from memory half the poems in Palgrave’s Golden 
Treasury or other similar collections and thought it 
nothing remarkable at all. They said that the verses 
were easily held in the memory and gave them some- 


222 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


thing pleasant to think about when they were at their 
work. And the memorizing had been done a line or two 
at a time in the midst of their daily tasks. So much of 
the very best in English and American poetry deals 
with country scenes that it often seems written for 
the farm people alone. It speaks in terms of the 
things which they know—the beauties of nature around 
them. 

In. fiction they like two types of stories, the country 
story which opens their eyes to things in their own 
surroundings, and the story of other times and places 
which carries them quite away from home. Yet they 
find fault with most of the stories of country life be- 
cause they do not consider them true to American con- 
ditions. In stories of the other kind they dislike any 
suggestion of immorality, but they do enjoy very in- 
timate pictures of social life in the cities or at court, of 
quaint customs in other lands or in other localities in 
America, for in these they feel that they are themselves 
visiting the places described and taking part in the ac- 
tivities. One farm woman surprised me by knowing 
exactly the requirements in dress for a woman to be pre- 
sented at the Court of St. James, though she had 
scarcely been off the home farm for years and had no 
thought of going to England. But the information 
appealed to her as an interesting human bit, quite out- 
side her own circle of activity. Another woman said, 
in discussing a book which had broadened her view of 
human life: ‘‘I ’d like to read a book like that about 
every single locality in the whole world! I want to 
know how everybody else lives.’’ Fantastic tales like 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 223 


those by Jules Verne, tales of adventure, and rather 
sentimental love stories are popular, as well as many 
of the older English novels. Detective stories were 
mentioned only occasionally in the lists of favorites. 
But the books which seem to them to deal honestly with 
some phase of nature or country life hold an enduring 
place in their hearts. They speak of them again and 
again and recommend them for children’s reading. 
John Burroughs, David Grayson, Gene Stratton Porter, 
Ernest Thompson-Seton, Emma Lindsay Squier, and 
recently Edna Ferber in ‘‘So-Big,’’ are mentioned as 
favorite writers. 

Travel stories are also most popular. The farm women 
feel with Ina Brevoort Roberts: 


I cannot go 

To other lands 

Where I would know 

What change is like; 

I cannot be 

In places new 

Where I would see 

The world so wide; 

But one may grow 

By books and so 

I do not ever envy feel 

For those who come and go. 

The world is wide 

But books are like the famous boots; 
With seeing eyes and lengthy stride 

I view the earth with love and pride 
While sitting by my own fireside, 


224 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


One farm woman tells of how she escaped a serious 
illness: ‘‘The doctor said I was on the edge of a break- 
down if I didn’t get a vacation, and I took up the 
reading habit for a vacation for my mind. I decided 
that worrying over bank-notes and weather is a non- 
profitable occupation. So I decided to travel—and 
think about something else besides our petty neighbor- 
hood differences and our next farmer who would n’t fix 
his fences. I read a dozen books that took me all around 
the world. By the time I had read all these, the work 
was trotting right along and I was mistress of the job.”’ 
One farm woman has been very much interested in 
books about Egypt since the discovery of the tomb of 
Tutankhamen. She has read so much about it that she 
is familiar with every part of it. ‘‘In fact,’’ she says, 
‘*T think if I should ever have a chance to go to Egypt, 
I ’d feel right at home!’’ 

The farm woman also reads to increase her general 
knowledge. One says: ‘‘It seems to me an erroneous 
idea that when a woman reaches mature years, thoughts 
of reading, and of the development to be gained through 
it, should be put away along with childish things. .. . 
A woman, if she cannot read much, can read a little. 
She can pore over a favorite book, a poem, or even a 
sentence till it becomes a part of her. Culture depends 
not so much on many opportunities as on making the 
fullest use of what we have. ‘The best in life is making 
the most of all things whether they be material or the 
abiding things of the spirit.’’ To the woman with the 
habit of reading and a mind open to new ideas, there is 
no limit to her education. Every day is a new teacher 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 225 


with fresh lessons for her to learn. And if her’ early 
education has been neglected, she does not despair. 
Every farmer knows that crops grow better when they 
are planted in the spring—but if something happens 
that he does not get a field planted at that time, he does 
not let it le fallow all summer on that account. He 
goes to work and plants a late crop of something that 
will add to his income from the farm. So the farm 
woman puts in her late crop of ideas and often gains 
more real culture than women who have had every ed- 
ucational opportunity. 


Books FOR CHILDREN 


The farm child needs his own library as an incentive 
to forming the reading habit, and the farm women are 
always much interested in children’s books. They wish 
the boys and girls to enjoy reading, and yet not 
waste their time on literary trash. But the building up 
of a good child’s library in the home is a serious problem 
when so little money is available. Some mothers give 
each child a book for a birthday present every year, 
beginning with a gay-colored Mother Goose or other baby 
classic on the first birthday, so that the library grows as 
the children grow. One woman reports that in her 
family the children worked puzzles, wrote articles and 
letters and sent in their handiwork to the farm papers, 
often winning books for prizes. Others teach their 
children to spend a certain part of the money that they 
earn, on good books which will be enjoyed by all the 
family. 


226 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


The ideal child’s library should include a good range 
of books suitable for both boys and girls and some which 
will interest grown people as well. No one can make 
a satisfactory list for any one else because we all have 
our special favorites, but the following list of twenty- 
five books will suggest those desirable for the country 
ehild’s collection. They are books which can be read 
again and again and yet be found interesting. These 
selections were made by teachers and librarians for the 
American Library Association as a Shelf of Books for a 
One-Room School: 

“Little Women,’’ Alcott; ‘‘Alice’s Adventures in 
Wonderland’’ and ‘‘Through the Looking-Glass,’’ Car- 
roll; ‘‘ Life of Robinson Crusoe,’’ Defoe; ‘‘ Adventures of 
Tom Sawyer,’’ Twain; ‘‘Treasure Island,’’ Stevenson; 
‘“Boy’s Life of Abraham Lincoln,’’ Nicolay; ‘‘The 
Jungle Book,’’ Kipling; ‘‘Fairy Tales,’’ Andersen; 
‘* Msop’s Fables’’; ‘‘Merry Adventures of Robin Hood,’’ 
Pyle; ‘‘Child’s Garden of Verse,’’ Stevenson; ‘*Tales 
from Shakespeare,’’ Lamb; ‘‘Arabian Nights’ Enter- 
tainment,’’ edited by Dixon; ‘‘Boys’ King Arthur,’’ 
Lanier; ‘‘Story of Mankind,’’ Van Loon; ‘‘Rebecca of 
Sunnybrook Farm,’’ Wiggin; ‘‘Home Book of Verse for 
Young Folks,’’ Stevenson ; ‘‘ Christmas Carol,’’ Dickens; 
‘Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,”’’ 
Irving; ‘‘Mother Goose’’; ‘‘Hans Brinker,’’ Dodge; 
*‘Boys’ Life of Theodore Roosevelt,’? Hagedorn; 
‘*Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys,’’ Hawthorne; ‘‘ Wild 
Animals I have Known,’’ Seton; ‘‘Heidi,’’ Spyri. AI- 
most any book dealer will be able to supply these books 
and, as most of them can be had in cheap editions, the 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 227 


cost is not very great. Two or three families of children 
in the same community sometimes buy different books 
from the list, so that they can pass them around and 
enjoy reading them all. 

These books will suggest others to add to the lbrary. 
A. boy who has really enjoyed ‘‘Tom Sawyer,’’ for in- 
stance, will not rest till he has secured ‘‘ Huckleberry 
Finn.’’ Or if he delights in the ‘‘fight on every page’’ 
in ‘‘Treasure Island,’’ he will want ‘‘Kidnapped’’; the 
‘Jungle Book’’ will lead to the ‘‘Second Jungle Book,’’ 
ete. To this general list of books should always be 
added the nature books on flowers, trees, birds, and 
butterflies, a good dictionary and, if possible, an encyclo- 
pedia, which should be in every country child’s library. 
If the income of the family does not allow the purchas- 
ing of books for the children, many of these can be se- 
cured for reading from the school, county, state or 
community library. 


PERIODICAL LITERATURE 


A recent study of 1034 farm homes in Nebraska 
shows that practically every farm home in the state 
receives some kind of newspaper. Most of these were 
the country weeklies and daily papers from the nearer 
cities—about three-fourths of the homes having a daily 
paper. Farm papers went to three-fourths of the homes, 
and more than half had more than one; a few had as 
many as six. So that, in these homes studied, the news 
side and the ‘‘dollar side’’ of life were pretty well taken 
care of. But the woman’s side of the home was much 


228 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


neglected, except in so far as it was covered in the farm 
papers. There were women’s magazines in only one — 
home in four, general magazines in one in five, and 
children’s magazines in one in thirty-three—though 
probably the children who attended Sunday School re- 
ceived some kind of Sunday School paper. Nebraska 
may not be in some respects quite typical of American 
farm home conditions, but at least the study indicates 
that reading is very general in the farm homes. 

I think that women’s magazines must be more 
common in farm homes than this Nebraska study in- 
dicates, for nearly all the women who write me mention 
one or more of them in listing their reading. Some of 
these may be borrowed from neighbors, however, as the 
farm woman does not always feel free to spend money 
on a periodical which does not affect the ‘‘dollar side’’ 
of the farm life. Yet they are greatly interested in the 
cultural and inspirational side of life. Many of them 
eriticize the farm papers for not giving more attention 
to their needs. The farm papers, one says, are ‘‘too full 
of prose,’’ they do not have jokes enough or enough 
stories for the children or good talks to parents, or 
general news. They would like to see a real farm home 
paper which would give a considerable part of its space 
to the interests of the women and the children—not 
just put them off with a ‘‘page’’ among the advertise- 
ments. In the women’s magazines they like a number 
of short articles which can be read in a few minutes 
between the household tasks. Good, clean, inspiring 
stories that the children can read, nature stories, 
travel stories, and scientific articles are thought de- 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 229 


sirable. And some of them mention a ‘‘When you go to 
the city’’ page so that they can keep up with the times 
in city affairs. They would like more attention given 
to the home needs of women who have very little money 
to spend, and success stories about country people 
as well as city people. 

An Oklahoma woman says: ‘‘We like to know how 
folks live on farms in other States, and other parts of 
our own State—what sort of climate they have and can 
they raise flowers. We want real stories, not air castles 
or wails from disgruntled homesteaders—just real 
homey letters that read like a face to face talk with a 
neighbor.’’ For the children they would like a section 
about pets, sports, nature study, and the lke, finger 
plays for the very little ones and a good puzzle and 
contest department. They say that very often the 
women’s magazines which are put on the ‘‘club lists’’ 
with farm papers do not satisfy them at all. They find 
that usually they get more for their money if they order 
one of the well-known women’s magazines which does 
not give so large a reduction in its rates. Yet they com- 
plain, too, that the big women’s magazines do not give as 
much space to the country woman’s interests as they 
should, in proportion to the number of country sub- 
scribers. They think the editors ought to be able to 
find more good stories about country life which would 
show the country woman herself in action and teach the ~ 
city woman something of what a country woman’s prob- — 
lems are. 

The children’s magazines were seldom mentioned in 
the letters, probably because most of the better ones cost 


230 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


more than the farmer can afford to pay. And if a 


woman hesitates about spending money on a woman’s 
magazine or a general magazine, she naturally does — 


eee ae 


not feel that she can well afford one for the children — 
alone. She feels that the little money available for the — 
children’s reading is better spent on books than on 
magazines. Yet she desires periodical reading for her © 
children and repeatedly urges that the women’s maga-— 


zines give more space to children’s stories, prize 


contests, and the like. As the children grow older, she © 
may interest them in the young people’s magazines and — 


urge them to spend a part of the money they make, for 
the subscriptions. Since some of these magazines also 


carry a department for the little children, the least ones — 


in the family are not altogether unprovided for. 
FREE LITERATURE 


Few farm women realize what a very useful person a 
Congressman or United States Senator can be in the 
way of keeping them in touch with the work of the 
Government departments in Washington. In fact, I 
have met two or three women who did not know that 
the Department of Agriculture dealt with women’s work 
at all! The Government bulletins on agricultural sub- 
jects have long been common, if not always popular, 
. upon the farm—the farmer usually receiving them from 
his Congressman without asking for them. And they 
have become a large factor in the farm life. I re- 
member in one farm home I visited, when the little four- 
year-old asked a question which was not answered to his 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 231 


satisfaction, he remarked, ‘‘I fink Ill send for a 
bulletin on dat!’’ And the farm woman should use 
this method of getting answers to some of the questions 
that bother her. These bulletins on home problems are 
free or cost but a few cents, and bring the latest 
scientific methods of home work to the housewife. 
Many of the general welfare organizations also put out 
excellent booklets, charts, etc., at such a low price that 
they are available to every woman. So that the woman 
on the farm can collect a considerable library of high- 
class information about her work and interests for only 
a dollar or two. Some of these publications are listed 
in The Farm Woman’s Bookshelf in the back of this 
book. 

For those who wish to undertake a general course of 
reading, some of the State universities have established 
home reading courses, and the Nebraska Agricultural 
College includes a reading course in American literature 
in its regular extension work. The most comprehensive 
group of courses, however, is directed by the Bureau of 
Education, Department of the Interior, Washington, 
D.C. Twenty-seven courses in all are listed, including: 
Reading for Parents, Reading for Boys, Reading for 
Girls, Thirty Books of Great Fiction, Thirty World 
Heroes, American Literature, Thirty American Heroes, 
Teaching, Agriculture and Country Life, Sixty Selected 
Stories for Boys and Girls, and Poetical Literature for 
Boys and Girls. On request an application for enrol- 
ment is sent, 2nd a booklet describing and listing the 
books to be read. A summary of each book read is 
required. And when one of the courses is finished, a 


232 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


certificate is awarded showing the work that has been 
accomplished. The books required are not furnished 
but can usually be secured through some library in the 
state. 


LABRARIES 


In recent years many of the State libraries have 
established an extension service for the country people. 
Some of them will send a box of fifty or sixty books to 
a community organization or to some responsible per- 
son—the books to be passed around for general reading. 
Others have a parcel post service by which they furnish 
books to country people, the borrower paying postage 
both ways. Still others have prepared packages of 
books and clippings on various subjects, and these are 
sent free—the postage in this case being very little. In 
this way the farm family can receive a supply of books 
for general reading and special study clubs and com- 
munity organizations can have books selected to meet 
their needs. To learn what library service is available 
In your own State, write to the State Library Com- 
mission at the State capitol and ask for information. 

County libraries have been established lately in some 
of the States. These give a mail service on all rural 
routes in the county, send out a book automobile or a 
book wagon to make a house to house delivery in the 
country districts, send traveling libraries to the rural 
schools, and establish branch libraries or stations in the 
villages. Thus everybody in the county who wishes td 
read has good reading at his command from the county 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 233 


library. These libraries are supported by a county 
library tax. It is to be hoped that some day some 
Carnegie who loves rural communities as well as the 
cities will establish free traveling libraries for the 
country people. A community library is an excellent 
memorial to a local man who has become wealthy, and a 
number of good Americans have used this method of 
keeping their memory green in the country districts. 
Little community libraries are often established by a 
group of women who are most interested in securing 
good reading for their families. Sometimes they collect 
funds by giving entertainments and use the money to 
establish a shelf of books in the home of some woman 
who is willing to take the trouble to check up on the 
books borrowed. Sometimes one energetic woman un- 
dertakes this service, banding the boys and girls of 
the community into a little society to raise funds for the 
books they want to read. Especially in the small village 
this is a service which is often of great importance in 
the lives of the young people. Parent-Teacher Associa- 
tions sometimes start a school shelf of books which later 
becomes a general community library. In South Dakota 
the State furnishes a few books every year to each 
country school library. In a Minnesota community in 
which there are many farmers of foreign birth, the com- 
munity library established by the local Farmers’ Club 
has been a means of bringing about a more neighborly 
feeling. Fifty books were bought, twenty-five in Eng- 
lish and twenty-five in foreign languages. The for- 
eigners were delighted to have books which they could 
read and, as their children borrowed the English books, 


234 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


some of them began learning to read English. And all 
of them felt more at home with their American 
neighbors because of the interest the Farmers’ Club had 
shown in them. 

The local book circle is a means of securing good 
reading matter when only a few women are interested. 
Each woman pays a fee, usually a dollar, and with this 
money a committee buys books for the circle, choosing 
from lists which the members have furnished. The 
books are then passed from one to another, the exchange 
being made every two weeks or every month, so that in 
the course of a year each member reads all the books 
owned by the circle. Then the books are sold, divided 
among the members, or perhaps donated to the local 
library if there is one. Miss Chastina Gardner in The 
Farmer’s Wife describes such a club of twenty-six 
women as it has worked for forty years in a small town 
in New York. Most country neighborhoods would have 
a smaller circle and probably the women would not 
eare to read so many books a year, but otherwise the 
plan is quite practical for the open country. In 
winter the books can be sent from one to another by 
parcel post. 


At the beginning of the club year, we buy and distribute 
twenty-six books, plan a cireuit, and once a fortnight each 
member passes her book to the next one on the cireuit and 
receives a book from the member whose name precedes hers 
on the list. | 

The organization is the simplest possible. There are no 
officers, no by-laws, no meetings. The membership is divided 
into four groups of five members each and one group of six. 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 235 


These groups act in successive years as committees to secure 
new books. 

The first duty of the committee is to ask each member to 
submit a list of books desired. The committee compares these 
lists and all books called for by more than one member are 
especially noted. Care is also taken to secure at least one 
book from each list. Then two or three members of the com- 
mittee make a visit to the nearest bookstore where an ex- 
perienced dealer aids with advice and suggestions. Thirty 
to thirty-five books are usually selected and sent on approval 
to be looked over by the committee. From these the requisite 
twenty-six are selected and any undesirable or superfluous 
volumes are returned. By purchasing in this way, favorable 
terms are secured. Two small books are often passed 
together. 

At the end of the club year the books are disposed of by 
auction. Sometimes we limit the sale to members and some- 
times allow others to buy, as seems desirable. The books 
which seem expensive to buy are usually the ones which bring 
the highest figures at the auction sale. The proceeds from 
the auction and from any fines are applied toward the bill 
for the new books. 

Inside the paper cover of each book we paste a list of 
the dates on which that book is to be passed on by each mem- 
ber, something as follows: 

“A fine of five cents will be charged for failure to mark 
the date of passing this book, and five cents for each day it 
is kept overtime. 


ELEY SCOOT ea Po tcl eal wey Shas ME eet Jan. 6.— 
WITS eA aINGmelss oa ta es Seed ogre Jan. 20.— 
NLT EN VIDILO ME a Ee Weve a ats Brkt ae We as Feb. 3.—” 


The Committee collects these slips at the auction and 
charges the fines to the guilty parties. The system of fines is 
necessary to prevent delays in passing books. 


236 |. THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


These are some of the practical methods by which 
the country women of America have secured good read- 
ing for their families. No doubt there are many other 
ways of which I have not heard. For the farm 
women believe firmly that a good book is one of the best 
and most inspiring things in life. They are determined 
to have it for their children—and when they are really 
determined, they succeed in spite of everything. They 
feel, with Emily Dickinson, that: 


There is no frigate like a book 

To take us miles away, 

Or any courser like a page 

Of prancing poetry. 

Such traverse may the poorest take 
Without oppress of toll; 

How frugal is the chariot 

That bears the human soul. 





CHAPTER XI 


THE COMMUNITY 


accustomed tasks, one may well ask what is to be 
done with the time saved, but the country woman 
has no difficulty in answering that question. She knows 
that what she and her family need most of all is a 
broader contact with people, and the time and energy to 
make the influence of the community as a whole good 
instead of bad. Gradually the home, even the farm 
home, is losing many of its functions to the community, 
and if the homemaker is to keep her hands upon the 
reins of her family’s life, she must enter into the com- 
munity work. She cannot keep her boy away from the 
young loafers in the nearest village, nor from the 
village motion-picture house. The family health is en- 
dangered by every case of typhoid fever in the neigh- 
borhood, and the food supply by unsanitary conditions 
in the village grocery store. And the farm family 
cannot live a healthy and happy life unless all the other 
people are living healthy and happy lives also. 
One of the most interesting developments in country 
life in the last few years has been the growing com- 
munity consciousness. The patriotic endeavors during 


the World War led the people generally to act together 
/ 237 


|: any study of the release of time and energy from 


238 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


and think together on their common problems more than 
they had ever done before. Many of them realized for 
the first time how much which is impossible to indi- 
vidual effort can be accomplished by codperation. In 
the economic field, the farmers had always felt that the 
unorganized country man was continually imposed upon 
by the highly organized commercial interests and this 
had brought the development of codperative marketing 
groups in many parts of the country. Now, however, 
many farm communities are formulating complete pro- 
grams for their activities along social, educational and 
economic lines, because they believe in a general pull 
together of all the forces. And a spirit of cooperation 
makes so much difference in the life of a country com- 
munity that many farmers inquire very closely into the 
local attitude before they decide to buy a farm in the 
neighborhood. If the spirit of the people is pro- 
gressive, they feel that their children will have a good 
social, educational and religious background; if it is not, 
the local institutions are likely to become run-down and 
inefficient. 


FarM WoMEN’s CLUBS 


Groups of farm women have in many country places 
been the leaders in good works in community affairs. 
These elubs vary greatly in the vigor of the organization, 
the purposes for which they are formed, and the number 
of members, but all do some kind of work for the gen- 
eral welfare. Probably the most highly organized farm 
women’s clubs are those in Ohio, formed under the 


THE COMMUNITY 239 


leadership of Miss Harriet Mason, associate editor of the 
Ohio Farmer. These clubs undertake a definite line 
of study each year in addition to their neighborhood 
activities. For many years this study was on home 
economics topics, until the university extension work 
had fully developed this line of information. This year 
they are studying a travel course, to learn about other 
people and other parts of the country. The State 
library makes up a list of books bearing on the monthly 
topics and these books are available to club members on 
payment of postage both ways. Railway folders also 
furnish a good source of information about the scenic 
attractions of the sections through which they pass. 
These clubs have a state organization called the Ohio 
Farm Women’s Club Federation, and this in turn is 
affiliated with the Ohio Federation of Women’s Clubs. 

The extension service of many of the State agri- 
cultural colleges foster clubs of farm women, primarily 
for the study of the leaflets on home and country life dis- 
tributed from the college. These have grown into com- 
munity welfare clubs in many instances. New York 
was a pioneer in this kind of organization and has ac- 
complished a great deal for rural life, particularly in its 
insistence on the study of the local history and civic 
problems. A recent list of the New York community 
programs includes excellent suggestions upon: A Study 
of our Neighborhood, Our School, Our Churches, Our 
Library, Our Boys and Girls: Their Health and Ree- 
reation, and Our Organizations. 

The Kansas State agricultural college has developed 
the Kansas Homemakers’ Clubs, their 1924 program 


240 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


emphasizing community health. Subjects assigned for 
the meetings are: Home and Community Health, Pre- 
vention of Contagious Diseases, Practical Disinfection, 
Health Habits (Posture), Special Diseases, Emergencies, 
The Home Medicine Cabinet, The Child Health Move- 
ment, The Hot Lunch, Child Labor, Infant Mortality. 

The Nebraska extension service has a particularly 
practical and comprehensive service on community top- 
ies which it renders to any club in the State applying for 
it, provides a yearbook and excellent programs with the 
extension circulars as a basis and additional references 
to books and magazine articles. The topics suggested for 
the year are: Hot Lunches for Rural Schools, How and 
When to Tell the Story of Life, Story Telling and the 
Child’s Library, What the Woman Should Know about 
Business Affairs, Child Welfare Work, the Home En- 
vironment, Music, Reading and Pictures in the Home, 
Meals for All Occasions, Play for the Child and the 
Grown Up, Facts about China Ware. 

Other State colleges have similar programs and these 
place in the hands of the country woman leader good 
material on many phases of her local problems. For 
programs suggesting the use of books and magazines, 
an arrangement with the State Library is usually made 
by which the local clubs can be supplied with the neces- 
sary literature at the least possible expense. For this 
reason any country woman does well to follow in her 
own organization the programs suggested by the ex- 
tension service. 

The following list, gathered from hundreds of letters 


THE COMMUNITY — 241 


of country women reporting the activities of their local 
- women’s clubs, will serve to indicate the scope of their 
efforts for local community betterment. In most eases, 
the improvement was undertaken by the women because 
it seemed the thing most urgent—it was the thing which 
their hands found to do—and they accomplished it in 
addition to their regular study programs: 

Established rest-room in the village, in codperation 
with a club of village women. 

Set up markers for points of local historical interest. 

Held community entertainments, community fairs, 
automobile pageant of organizations, tableaux, amateur 
theatricals and historical pageants. 

Insisted upon—and sometimes furnished the funds for 
—the teaching of home economics and manual training 
in the country schools. 

Organized a hunt for animal pests, and furnished the 
dinner for the workers. 

Established ‘‘Road Working Day,’’ and furnished | 
lunches for the workers. 

Organized paint-up and clean-up campaigns. 

Arranged for medical and dental inspection in the 
schools, hired a community nurse, furnished a hospital 
room, helped with Red Cross work. 

Improved the local cemeteries. 

Held community Christmas trees with carol singing. 
Held regular community sings. 

Bought 100 trays, spoons and folding-chairs, which 
could be borrowed for large affairs by any one in the 
neighborhood. 


242 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Planted shade trees along the roads. 
Coodperated with city women’s organizations for the 
marketing of garden products. 


GENERAL FARM ORGANIZATIONS 


The Grange—Of all the farm organizations, the 
Grange stands preéminent in the opportunity it has given 
the country woman for her own development and for 
service to the community. One of its founders was a 
woman, Miss Carrie A. Hall, and in the beginning the 
Order provided that women be received with exactly 
the same rights and privileges as men. This was a very 
forward step in 1867 and for a long time the farmers 
were twitted by the city press about their ‘‘ petticoat 
government’’ in country life affairs. But the American 
farmer knew the American farm woman and he was not 
ashamed to recognize her as an equal. And the men of 
the organization now admit freely that without the help 
of the women, who clung to the Grange when all hope 
seemed lost, the Grange would have succumbed after a 
few years’ struggle, as has many another organization 
intended for rural betterment. 

In the past few years I have had the opportunity of 
meeting many Grange women from all the thirty-five 
Grange States, and many others have written me their 
experiences with the organization. They all show that 
they have learned to think clearly and deeply on social 
and economic questions, especially those influencing 
country life, and that they have very definite ideas about 
the needs of the country community. And they can 


THE COMMUNITY 243 


express their ideas clearly and forcibly. Since the 
Grange meeting is like a big family gathering with old 
and young taking part, speaking becomes easy for them. 
It is not long before a new woman member is learning 
to “‘think upon her feet,’’ as the Grangers put it, and is 
really enjoying it. A woman from Oklahoma writes 
me that before joining the Grange she had never lis- 
tened to the sound of her own voice in public. ‘‘But,’’ 
she added, ‘‘I always wanted to do that very thing!”’ 
A woman writes me from Illinois, ‘‘Many a farm woman 
has developed from a timid young girl, afraid of her 
own voice, into a power for good in the community— 
often entering larger fields, because of the training re- 
ceived in the Grange.’’ The friendly spirit of the 
meetings gives her a sense of security that bolsters her 
courage for more difficult tasks. One tells me that: 
‘‘Tf I had to speak a piece in the church, I tried it in 
the Grange first and then profited by the suggestions 
and criticisms. So I got a big reputation for speak- 
ing, that I didn’t exactly deserve.’’ 

When the annual election rolls around, the Grange 
woman learns a great deal about politics. Perhaps 
she enters upon an active campaign for an office for her- 
self. Frequently there is a lively competition between 
a man and a woman for some coveted position and if 
she proves herself ‘‘the best man’’ by getting a majority 
of the votes, she takes a great satisfaction in it. Many 
of the most efficient lecturers of subordinate Granges 
are women, and even the bugaboo of parliamentary 
rules does not deter them from seeking the Mastership. 
*‘Some of the most progressive Masters and Lecturers 


244 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


of the Oklahoma subordinate Granges,’’ I am assured, 
‘‘are women—country women of ability.’’ After such 
training they may become Masters or Lecturers of 
Pomona and State Granges. Twelve of the State 
Granges have women Lecturers and many women ap- 
pear in other positions on the official lists. Mrs. Sarah 
G. Baird was Master of the Minnesota State Grange for 
many years. Perhaps some day we shall see a woman 
elected Master of the National Grange. 

The Grange woman particularly honors the Grange 
because it gives her such a good opportunity for im- 
proving her mind. However good a man’s field is, it 
will not bring forth good crops without cultivation, 
wisely reasoned the founders, and one’s mind is like his 
field in needing tillage and seeding for a good harvest. 
During the lecturer’s hour the women often read essays 
on subjects of interest. They are as much interested 
in the talks on growing better crops and animals as 
any man present. The Home Economics committee 
always sees that a part of every session is devoted to 
home-making and the eare and feeding of children. 
Other women’s interests are given a regular place on the 
programs. For instance, in winter, poultry raising is 
discussed: in spring, gardening; and in summer, the 
canning of fruits and vegetables. New problems can — 
always be brought up by means of the question-box. 

Especially in the sparsely settled States where the 
Grange is almost the only source of culture in the com- 
munity, a general information program is very popular. 
One such general plan is known as the ‘‘book and 
country’’ programs, At one meeting a book, previously 


THE COMMUNITY 245 


read by the members, is discussed and each member is 
expected to contribute his own impressions from the 
reading. At the next meeting some foreign country is 
the subject and besides the prepared talks, each member 
contributes from his general knowledge. Sometimes 
instead of the usual program, the members present a play 
or pantomime. If it goes well, it can be given in public 
later for charitable or community purposes. These are 
but a few of the opportunities for self-education. When 
I asked one woman about the help she had received in 
this way, she seemed to think it a foolish question. ‘‘It 
is the same as if you should ask a person if attendance 
at school or college had helped along those lines,’’ she 
said. 

‘Even good seeds are worthless unless they grow,”’ 
is a good Grange maxim, and the ideas the Grangers 
get usually bring forth ‘‘a good and generous harvest.”’ 
Nearly every woman with whom I have talked has 
mentioned the community benefit as one of the best 
things of the Grange. An Illinois woman writes me: 
‘“‘Before our Grange was organized, there was not a 
Single home within the Grange area which enjoyed any 
of the so-called modern conveniences, with the exception 
of one, which had running water in the kitchen. Now 
practically every Grange home has running water, bath- 
room, furnace, power of some kind for washing, churn- 
ing, ete., and many have installed electric power plants 
for lighting purposes, ironing, vacuum sweepers, etc. 
In fact, these Grange women have all the conveniences 
-which their city sisters enjoy. Of course, this does not 
prove that the Grange was entirely responsible for these 


246 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


changes, but I do know that these subjects were dis- 
cussed many times during Grange lecture-hour pro- 
grams. And another significant fact is that we can go 
into one home after another just outside the Grange 
membership and still find the old conditions existing.”’ 

Frequently, too, the talks on home appliances stimu- 
late the men to action. As a Connecticut woman can- 
nily remarked: ‘‘The women may know about home 
conveniences in some other way but it is in the Grange 
that the farmers hear about the new devices and apph- 
ances—and that is what counts when it comes to get- 
ting money to pay for them. The Grange has prompted 
many a good brother to resolve how much he could 
do in making his home attractive.’’ The men often 
take so much interest in installing a good lighting sys- 
tem in the Grange Hall that they decide to put in simi- 
lar lights in their homes. And the activities of the more 
progressive members are always a stimulus to the 
weaker brethren. ‘‘When a run-down family joins the 
Grange,’’ a New England woman says, ‘‘they and their 
surroundings improve by the example of their fellow 
Grangers.’’ Better schools nearly always follow the or- 
ganization of a Grange in a community because the 
women are ready for any scheme of school improvement. 
One woman writes me that since they have the Grange: 
‘‘Our children do not walk two or more miles to school 
with the thermometer below zero. The community sees 
that a bus, trolley ear, or other conveyance is provided.’’ 
At present the’ women are urging the inclusion of home 
economics in every country school and the serving of hot 
noon lunches for the children. 


THE COMMUNITY 247 


Very often the outcome of woman’s work in the 
Grange is some form of codperative buying or market- 
ing. Egg clubs and vegetable-hamper clubs are formed 
to sell direct to the city consumer. As one says, ‘‘Coun- 
try people who have learned to meet together and to 
eat together soon learn to work together.’? When one 
considers the handicaps under which the country woman 
has worked, the distances to the meetings (often with 
a poor conveyance), her dependence on weather and 
road conditions, the over-crowded lives of the persons 
she seeks to influence, and her own timidity because 
she so seldom got away from home, it seems remarkable 
that she has accomplished so much. If in the next fifty 
years, with all the new facilities for travel and com- 
munication, she keeps up to her past record, she will ac- 
complish miracles indeed. 

The Farm Bureau—The Farm Bureau was thought of 
in the beginning as strictly a man’s organization— 
though women managers of farms and women farm 
Owners were welcomed to their meetings and to their 
cooperative marketing groups, and some of the farmers 
brought their wives along to help them discuss the farm 
problems. But there was no especial place for the coun- 
try women to take hold. More recently, however, in 
many communities the local Farm Bureau has expanded 
its work to include the women and they have worked out 
very excellent programs. The women of the organiza- 
tion, whether organized as a section of the Farm Bureau 
or as a separate Home Bureau, work chiefly with 
the home demonstration agent who renders to the home 
much the same kind of service rendered the farmers by 


248 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the agricultural agent. They also, in some sections, 
study the programs prepared by the college of agri- 
culture extension service. 

But for the most part their work has been the dis- 
seminating among the members of the latest scientific 
information upon homemaking and women’s farm proj- 
ects, by means of meetings with the demonstration 
agents, special meetings for the making of dress forms, 
hat-making, sewing, ete., study of the agricultural and 
homemaking bulletins, and lectures by specialists in 
various subjects. There has been no general policy, so 
far as I can learn, for the developing of community 
life through the organization. 

Yet, because of the fact that each local unit is entirely 
free to develop its own program, it is likely that in some 
Places the women have developed definite community 
ideals. For country women generally are not to be held 
to a strictly self-improvement program. They see the 
human side of things and the need of country people 
for social development, and for codperation in the com- 
munity for the sake of all its members. A farm woman 
from Tennessee reports that, at the regular meetings 
of her Farm Bureau unit, lunch is served at one of the 
homes, and that one big luncheon (probably including 
most of the community) is held in winter, and a big 
pienic in midsummer. The Farm Bureau Club of 
Swan Valley, Idaho, has developed a community ree- 
reation program. 

The great emphasis of the Farm Bureau has been 
upon better marketing of the farm products, and in 
this the women have been intensely interested. "Women 


THE COMMUNITY 249 


from all over the country have written me of the bene- 
fits they have gained by codperative selling. In many 
places they have opened a Farm Bureau market at the 
nearest town where the women ean sell their products 
under the best possible conditions. In other places they 
have developed large ‘‘egg ceircles,’’ and vegetable 
hamper circles to ship direct to city families. In con- 
nection with this work, they have had the expert service 
of the home demonstration agent and the agricultural 
agent in developing new products which will be profit- 
able and find a ready sale among the city people. Since 
the greatest handicaps of country life are the low in- 
come from the farms and the difficulty of keeping in 
practical touch with new scientific ideas, this service 
is of great value. 

Other Organizations—So far as I have been able to dis- 
cover, the other farm organizations do not have very def- 
inite plans for the country women’s work. The women 
often attend the meetings, take part in the discussions 
and vote on organization questions, but seldom hold of- 
fice or assist in working out the plans for the organiza- 
tion. Their local work consists in taking up any immedi- 
ate project which they think desirable or in helping the 
men in their work. In the Farmers’ Union a woman’s 
booth is placed in the codperative markets, where the 
country women sell cooked food and garden products. 

Recently there has been a tendency toward local organ- 
izations for community purposes only. These usually 
have no requirements for membership except a small fee 
for running expenses. They meet in the schoolhouse, 
or other public building and hold community forums, 


250 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


pageants, entertainments, and other general neighbor- 
hood affairs. These loosely-constructed welfare organ- 
izations have done a great deal of good in some neighbor- 
hoods, particularly in stirring the people to a general 
community consciousness, but they tend to go to pieces 
after a time because of their lack of definite purpose. 
If a close-knit organization could be developed, with 
definite ideals, it might bring the solution of many 
country-life problems. 


Boys’ AND Girus’ CLuBs ; 


The most important organizations of country boys 
and girls are the Boys’ and Girls’ Clubs developed by 
the State departments of extension in codperation with 
the Department of Agriculture. There are now some 
457,000 farm boys and girls enrolled in these groups 
throughout the country. The chief purpose of the 
clubs is to instruct the young people in scientific 
agriculture and homemaking, but the boys and girls 
usually find the work financially profitable, and socially 
profitable as well, since the meetings and trips bring 
them together frequently. The work in the home-making 
projects has tended to develop the social side more 
fully because sewing, cooking, ete., can be done in groups. 
Some of the projects which have been most popular are, 
the raising of pigs, calves, colts, and poultry; the grow- 
ing of corn, tomatoes, and potatoes; canning, bread- 
making, cake-making, sewing and redecorating rooms. 
Many of the boys and girls carry on several projects at 
the same time, and the versatility of the country young 


THE COMMUNITY 251 


person is shown by the fact that both boys and girls are 
in most of the groups. Many girls are interested in 
raising livestock—the national champion in stock judg- 
ing in 1923 was a girl. And the boys sometimes under- 
take cake baking or canning. 

Most of the boys and girls find the work profitable 
because, under the instruction of the extension worker 
or the county agent, they are taught to use the best 
and most economical methods. The winner of the con- 
tests usually gets a considerable amount of money in 
prizes. It is said that one Tennessee girl received $353 
in prizes for her champion calf, and sold the calf for 
$140. One of the boys in a pig club won $50 in prizes 
with his pig. And a girl in Virginia is said to have 
$10,000 worth of livestock from her work in various 
club projects. The girls in the home-making projects 
win prizes, and in addition have the articles to sell or to 
use in the home. It is this financial side of the work 
which has so much interested the country boys and girls, 
who see in the club projects an opportunity to do some- 
thing worth while and to make money for a college 
education or for other purposes. 

Sometimes the prizes take the form of scholarships 
to the State agricultural college. And frequently the 
prize is a trip to the State fair, to the agricultural 
college, the national dairy show, or to Washington, D. 
C.—a great experience for the country boy or girl. 
Some of the girls from the canning clubs were given a 
trip to France to demonstrate American canning methods 
to the French people. In connection with the work of 
the project, the members are trained in the keeping of 


252 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


careful accounts of the cost of production, reckoning 
their own labor and the time spent upon the study of the 
subject. This gives them excellent business training for 
future work in farming or homemaking. 

In some of the States the boys’ and girls’ clubs go 
- camping in the summer time and while at camp are 
carefully trained in all the Four-H’s—head, hand, 
health, and heart—and are given wholesome outdoor 
life and recreation. The camp of the West Virginia 
clubs at Jackson’s Mills is a permanent one and the 
boys’ and girls’ clubs from the different counties are 
raising funds for comfortable cabins. But the best 
training given by the Four-H Clubs is that in the com- 
munity spirit. Country boys and girls who would 
otherwise grow up almost without playmates of their 
own age are brought together in groups where they can 
work together and play together until they develop a 
sense of group responsibility toward the various ac- 
tivities. 


COOPERATIVE MARKETING 


One of the important points of contact is in the 
codperative marketing of products, a method which has 
become common in many country districts in the last 
few years. The organizations for this purpose vary 
from the simple ‘‘egg circles’’ of the women to large 
cooperative concerns which are capitalized at many 
thousands of dollars and which employ salaried shippers 
and packers. 

One of the most popular forms of codperative work 


THE COMMUNITY 253 


for women is the ‘‘egg circle.’? The women of the 
neighborhood form an organization for the study of 
poultry-raising and the marketing of their poultry 
products. Frequently they also do codperative buy- 
ing of feed and other supplies. They contract with a 
good market in the city to supply strictly high-class 
eggs, at a price somewhat above the current price in the 
village. Each member is furnished with a stamp with 
the name of the ege circle and a number identifying 
the eggs, so that in case a bad egg is shipped it can be 
traced to the owner. Or sometimes one member under- 
takes to handle the eggs, grade, candle, stamp, pack and 
ship them to market for a fee of two or three cents a 
dozen. As in all codperative associations it is necessary 
to have a leader who has real business ability, and to 
establish a small sinking fund for unexpected expenses. 
Since on most farms the production and selling of eggs 
and poultry has long been the best immediate possibility 
of increasing the income, these egg circles can do much 
to improve the farm home. They handled many thou- 
sands of dozens of eggs in the past year. Live chickens, 
dressed chickens—prepared according to instructions 
given by an extension lecturer—baby chicks, and other 
poultry are also marketed in much the same way. 
Sometimes the women specialize in one breed of chickens 
so that their poultry products will be of consistent high 
quality. 

Other groups of women prefer to market canned 
goods, jellies, jams, etc. For the purposes of codpera- 
tive selling, it is necessary that they specialize on a few 
kinds and all follow the same recipe carefully, so that 


254 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


the product will be standardized. The South Carolina 
Home Producers’ Association limit their output to 
ten varieties: blackberry jam, plum jelly, artichoke rel- 
ish, fig preserves, grape juice, soup mixture, Dixie Bur- 
goo, Brunswick stew, Pine Bark fish stew, and butter. 
These products are prepared from special recipes, put 
up in special containers and sold under the label of 
the Association. In one year they sold products to the 
value of $22,000. 

A Farm Bureau group in Ohio has begun a codpera- 
tive canning business, specializing on apple butter, 
beans, and bantam corn. Groups in fruit-growing dis- 
tricts specialize on jellies, jams and fruit butters, and 
in truck-growing districts on home-canned tomatoes, 
corn, beans, ete., and on many varieties of pickles. If 
possible it is wise to develop some distinctly local prod- 
uct from some famous recipe, which can become identi- 
fied with the Association in the minds of the buyers. 
As city people are always eager for some new food to 
vary the diet, a good trade can be worked up if the 
product is high-class and palatable. Needless to say, 
the women of a group selling canned goods must all be 
expert cooks, for an occasional bad can will do much to 
hurt the sale of the product. 

Other groups of women open a general codperative 
market, or a stall in some city market where many kinds 
of products are sold on a small commission. In one 
county in Tennessee they have two markets a year, be- 
fore Thanksgiving and before Easter, when they sell for 
three days all sorts of farm products, also quilts, rugs, 
aprons, dresses, fancy work, baskets, and other hand- 


THE COMMUNITY 255 


made articles. During these sales the Farm Bureau 
women serve a seventy-five cent dinner to the towns- 
people as an extra money-making project, and this has 
been very profitable. Many of them succeed in making 
money out of the sale of flowers, dahlia and gladiolus and 
peony roots, and well-rooted small plants for transplant- 
ing. In these markets, also, distinctive articles are 
profitable because many people like to send as presents 
something representing the local handicrafts. Some- 
times suggestions for this trade can be given by the older 
people of the community who know the old quilt pat- 
terns, weaving patterns, and the secrets of the old- 
fashioned dyeing. 

In some sections the home demonstration agents have 
~ assisted in establishing a local industry, as in one county 
in Mississippi where the women have found a ready sale 
for baskets made from the needles of the long-leaf pines, 
from the honeysuckle stems and from splints and honey- 
suckle stems combined. ‘The sales of these baskets alone 
amounted to more than $2,500 in a year. An lowa 
group has sold hundreds of dollars’ worth of cucumber 
pickles put up by a special recipe. The women say 
that they really enjoy selling their products in the co- 
operative markets. They are with their friends and 
neighbors, and the city women stop to buy, and then 
stay to visit awhile, unless the selling is too pressing. 
The country women pass on their recipes for salads and 
other foods, and learn how the city women cook things 
and what they require in food products. Very often 
a city woman makes a suggestion for some special 
product which, through her advertising it among her 


256 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


friends, becomes very profitable to the country woman. 

The country women say that their work in cooperative 
eircles gives them fine training in teamwork. In join- 
ing the group each member is under obligation to con- 
form honestly to a high standard of products, and to 
follow all the rules carefully for the sake of the good 
name of the group, even though she loses some money 
by so doing. She is morally bound, if not legally, to 
stay with her group even when she could receive a 
higher price elsewhere, for the sake of future benefits 
she and the others may receive. This is often a trying 
issue, for nearly always the formation of a vigorous co- 
operative group raises the local price temporarily and it 
requires a great deal of loyalty for the women to keep 
on selling through the codperative at a lower figure. 
Yet it pays in the long run, for if the codperative were 
‘to fail, the local price would soon drop to its former 
low level. And it is very necessary that personal feel- 
ing should not creep in. The members of the group are 
admitted because of their products, and the quality of 
the product must always be the point at issue—the 
quality to be judged always by the most exact scientific 
standards. 


COMMUNITY PROJECTS 


One of the first needs of many rural neighborhoods 
to-day is a good doctor and hospital facilities within 
automobile distance of the farms. One of the handi- 
caps to living in the country has always been the gen- 
eral lack of hospital and medical service, and this has 


THE COMMUNITY 257 


been more noticeable than ever in the recent shortage 
of country doctors. Some communities are paying a 
considerable bonus each year in order to have a good 
doctor within reach. County hospitals have been es- 
tablished, largely through local efforts in many of the 
States, but even these may not be sufficiently near all 
the country districts. The great need is for a hospital 
equipped to handle accident cases, which might without 
immediate attention cause death or permanent injury, 
and many of the women’s organizations are busy de- 
veloping the community interest in such an institution. 
When the community interest has been awakened, the. 
nearest doctor usually arranges for the codperation of 
the State Department of Health and the United States 
Public Health Service in working out a hospital plan 
suited to the local needs, and the whole community 
takes part in the drive for the funds necessary to es- 
tablish it. A county or community nurse is also a 
great benefit to the local people because by care and 
insistence on quarantine she keeps in check diseases 
which would greatly lower the health rate of the neigh- 
borhood. 

Since the problems of the daily work in one farm 
home are the same as those in other homes in the 
neighborhood, in thickly settled communities many of 
the burdens of the housewife can be lifted by community 
effort. In some sections, electrical power for the farm 
home can best be provided by a codperative plant in the 
nearest village to supply the village people as well as 
the farm homes within a radius of five miles. <A co- 
operative creamery and cheese factory will lift many 


258 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


burdens from the woman on the dairy farm, and in con- 
nection with it can be installed a small ice plant and a 
neighborhood laundry. Bakeries and ice-cream fac- 
tories, so located that they can serve a considerable ter- 
ritory, have also been successful in some neighborhoods. 
The rural telephone system is usually a codperative en- 
terprise. When the woman on the farm can have all 
the electrical conveniences for the home, send her 
clothes to the community laundry with the cream on 
Monday morning and have them returned fresh and 
clean on Wednesday, can keep her ice box running regu- 
larly, and buy the family butter supply from the 
creamery, she will certainly believe that the millennium 
has arrived. And yet all these projects have been ear- 
ried out in farming communities in America, and it 
seems likely that they will become far more common in 
the next few years. 

A rest room in the nearest market place is usually the 
result of codperation between the neighborhood farm 
woman’s clubs and civie clubs of the town. The idea 
is for the country women to have somewhere to go when 
in town, to rest or wait for their husbands, to leave 
packages, make their children comfortable, eat their 
lunches, and drink a cup of tea. In some localities the 
town organizations provide a suitably located room with 
equipment, while the country women help pay the wages 
of the matron to keep it in order. Or the town women 
may take turns in being hostess at the rest room. If 
a matron is in charge, she can manage in addition a 
small library, a woman’s exchange for cookery and hand- 
work, a lunch counter, or something else to help pay 


THE COMMUNITY 259 


for her time. Sometimes one of the principal stores at 
which the country women deal is glad to furnish a 
room for their use. Such a rest room is almost a neces- 
sity at the trading center for the farmers. That it is 
appreciated is shown by the fact that sometimes as many 
as a thousand farm women use it in the course of a 
month. 

Community buildings are being erected in many of 
the more prosperous farming sections, to be used for all 
community purposes. They are financed usually by 
voluntary contributions or by the efforts of one of the 
leading rural organizations. When built, they are 
maintained by dues, fees, rentals, receipts from enter- 
tainments, ete. In some communities, much of the ma- 
terial for the building and much of the labor are volun- 
tary contributions. The people take a great pride in 
‘“our house’’ and have more pleasure in using it because 
their hands have helped in building it for the com- 
munity welfare. Frequently the women are the moving 
spirits in agitating the question of a community house, 
in furnishing the meals for the workers, holding enter- 
tainments to secure money, and generally keeping the 
men at the task until it is finished. 

The farm woman in most country places takes a great 
interest in the county fair. For one thing, it gives her 
somewhere to go to meet with other people, and it gives 
her an opportunity to enter the work of her hands in the 
contests for prizes. In recent years, the local fair is 
becoming educational as well as entertaining. At some 
of the fairs, for instance, the farm women have 
made wonderful exhibits of their accomplishments. A 


260 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


properly equipped kitchen is a favorite display, with 
all the equipment grouped as it should be. A well- 
selected and packed school lunch is shown, with mimeo- 
graphed recipes and directions to be distributed. Good 
exhibits of home dressmaking, dyeing, millinery, quilt- 
making and basketry are common. And in addition to 
the displays of jams, jellies, pickles, and canned goods, 
the women have established a sales-booth at some fairs, 
at which they dispose of a large quantity of such prod- 
ucts to city visitors. 

Besides their exhibits of perfect canned products, the 
women of Delaware last year exhibited spoiled and 
poorly packed vegetables and fruits, with ecards telling 
what had caused the trouble, and this display created a 
great deal of interest. The farm girls are proud to 
display the rugs, curtains, furniture covers, and bed- 
spreads they have made for their rooms. Sometimes 
they even fit up two bedrooms for display—one care- 
lessly furnished, the other, with no more expensive fur- 
niture, an artistically furnished room. 


ScorRING THE COMMUNITY 


The West Virginia University extension department 
has recently worked out a system of scoring commun- 
ities, as horses or cattle are scored—with a certain rat- 
ing given to a definite number of points. This has 
created a great deal of interest in the rural communities 
in the State which vie with each other in improving the 
score before the next test is applied by the extension 
workers. No one likes to see his rival community get 


THE COMMUNITY 261 


the better of him. And many communities which had 
run down from lack of interest in their affairs have 
taken the up-grade. Extension workers in other States 
are beginning to use this system for the building up 
of country neighborhoods. The scoring system is worked 
out in detail under ten heads: 1. Community Spirit, 
2. Citizenship, 3. Recreation, 4. Health, 5. Homes, 
6. Schools, 7. Churches, 8. Business, 9. Farm-Field 
Crops, 10. Farm-Livestock. Each division has a possi- 
ble 100 points, with from three to eight subdivisions, 
and any community interested in knowing where it 
stands can easily check up these points for itself. 


CHAPTER XII 


SOCIAL LIFE 


HE farmer himself may be an individualist, but 
the farmer’s wife never is. She has a natural 
liking for social contacts just as has every 
other woman the world over. In the old days of the 
westward-going pioneers as the family caravan pain- 
fully struggled up the mountain trail which led to the 
boundless West, the man looked forward eagerly to what 
lay on before. But the white-faced women and girls in 
their sunbonnets, strained their eyes for a long look 
backward toward the friends and neighbors they were 
leaving forever. They were not less courageous than 
the man of the family, but they knew a much keener 
grief for the loss of old companionships and all the 
social pleasures which a woman holds dear. 

And ever since pioneer days the woman on the farm 
has somehow managed, with all her heavy tasks, to find 
time for social activities. Wherever she has felt that she 
eould gain for her family a mental or spiritual food 
which the home could not well provide, she has been 
absolutely untiring and undiscouraged in her labors to 
secure it for her family. To her determined leadership 
is due the existence of almost every rural chureh in 


America. And social organizations, like the Grange, 
262 


SOCIAL LIFE 263 


have survived in the rural districts where so many eco- 
nomic organizations have failed, because the woman on 
the farm saw in them something her family needed, and 
she clung to them with a grip of steel. The story is 
told of one courageous Ohio woman who, when every- 
one else in the community gave up the local Grange, 
went each month to the meeting-place, called the roll of 
the absent members, wrote up the reports, paid the dues 
from her butter and egg money, and kept on for months 
until the other members, perhaps growing ashamed of 
themselves when they saw her devotion to the cause, 
began to drift back. And that subordinate Grange later 
became an important force for good in the community. 
So the country woman stands preéminent in our rural 
social development because nothing in which she was 
really interested has ever failed. 

In social affairs, the country woman thinks chiefly of 
the needs of her children. Every mother knows that 
a child is full of a tremendous energy which has great 
powers for good or evil. He must be doing something 
every minute that he is awake, and if he is too much re- 
pressed he is certain to explode into serious mischief of 
some kind. In early childhood the work and play and 
freedom of the farm life give him a sufficient outlet for 
his high spirits, but as he grows older and begins to 
desire the company of other children, he becomes a real 
problem. In the old days, the farmer’s attitude often 
was to wear out this abundant energy with a long day’s 
work in the fields ‘‘to keep him out of devilment.’’ 
Perhaps it did—though many of the stories handed 
down from that period do not indicate it particularly. 


264 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


ae 
But on the modern farm, the farmer himself does not 
work such long hours and the boy usually has consider- 
able free time and excess energy to be expended on out- 
side activities. He may go off to the village to be with 
boys of his own age, and the mother knows only too well 
the low morals of some of his associates in that un- 
supervised companionship. But unless she can furnish 
him with some other recreation, she is powerless against 
it. 

In recent years the country woman has learned that 
she must extend her activities to the whole community 
if it is to be a safe place to rear her boys and girls. 
She has learned that the companions of her boy and 
girl do not matter so much, so long as they are engaged 
in some active sport or in supervised recreation. It 
is when ‘‘the gang’’ goes off behind the barn or loafs 
about the town garage that the real mischief is likely to 
be hatched. And because she has comparatively little 
time for social and educational leadership, she likes 
to include the whole family in her plans and to serve 
several purposes at once. So the most popular organi- 
zations with the farm woman have been the church, 
which gives religious training combined with social and 
educational work; the Grange, which combines the 
social, educational and economic; the Farm Bureau, with 
its codperative marketing and scientific training; and 
the general community groups which combine commun- 
ity development and patriotic exercises with social train- 
ing. All of these can be made to include all, or nearly 
all, the family in some of their activities. 

Age and sex group organizations like the Boy Scouts, 


SOCIAL LIFE 265 


the Girl Scouts, the Campfire Girls, the Y. M. C. A. and 
the Y. W. C. A. have never become very well established 
in the country districts, perhaps largely because they 
separate the members of the farm family. The country 
woman does not have time to foster one organization 
for Peter, another for Mary, another for John, and an- 
other for Nell, and still another for herself and her 
husband. She much prefers a general organization to 
which the whole family can go in one trip of the ear, 
and in which she can keep a watchful eye upon the do- 
ings of the younger set. Yet these highly specialized 
organizations for young people have so much good in 
them, and give so much assistance in directing group 
activities, that they may well be developed as a part of 
the general program. The local Grange, for instance, 
sometimes fosters a troop of Boy Scouts, and the church 
the Y. W. C. A. and the Y. M. C. A., so that the coun- 
try young people can profit by their excellent training. 
And in communities wealthy enough to afford a salaried 
leader of recreation, these organizations provide well- 
trained workers to organize the local boys and girls for 
community purposes. 

In the early days the Grange, because it was a secret 
society, felt it could not include little children among 
its members. Yet the need of the children for social 
life was so pressing that the Juvenile Grange was 
formed and has come to be one of the most important 
parts of the Order. Children up to five years are al- 
lowed to attend the regular Grange with the mother, 
then they join the Juvenile Grange and have their own 
exercises under the supervision of a Matron, while the 


266 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


other meeting is going on. At fourteen they can join 
the Big Grange, as the children call it, and take part 
with the adults. So the whole family is provided for 
in the two meetings. In the Juvenile Grange the chil- 
dren have a simple ritual of their own; they are taught 
to read and recite and to make little speeches about 
their pets and sports; they learn the fundamental prin- 
ciples of community and national life, and in other 
ways are prepared for their future work in the Order. 
The two meetings often join for the lecturer’s hour 
which is the entertainment program—the children tak- 
ing part in the exercises while the parents, and fre- 
quently the grandparents, look on with great pride and 
pleasure. A woman says of her father, ‘‘I don’t know 
whether he was prouder when his grandchildren began 
to appear on the children’s night programs than he was 
over his own children, but it certainly was a great grati- 
fication to him.’’ Another says of her children, ‘‘ When 
they are in the Grange I know they are with the right 
people and thinking the right things, and that is a great 
comfort to a mother, I can tell you.’’ 

One of the greatest needs of the country person is to 
‘‘oet out and around,’’ to see other people and take 
part with them in some sort of activity, and the various 
forms of recreational meetings give this opportunity. 
There is a difference between amusement and recrea- 
tion. One may be amused by seeing moving-pictures 
and ball games, listening over the radio, hearing con- 
certs or attending the theater, but true recreation ealls 
for the person himself to take part in the activity. It 
is a means of self-development and _ self-expression 


SOCIAL LIFE 267 


which is particularly enjoyed by young people. But 
the grown people enjoy it, too. Once they have learned 
the knack of being merry, they get quite as much fun 
out of it as do the boys and girls. 

In the old days of the pioneers, there were many 
community parties,—the barn-raisings, husking- and 
quilting-bees, sugaring-offs, spelling matches, singing- 
schools, dances, ‘‘play parties’’ and socials, with plenty 
of chance for participation for young and old. But 
the changing conditions of agriculture and country life 
have caused most of these to be given up, and few | 
group activities of equal importance have arisen to take 
their places. So it is important that we make the most 
of all the country life frolics which are left to us, de- 
velop some others wherever possible, and perhaps re- 
establish some of those which were popular in the past. 


THe Eiretp Day 


Next after the county fair, probably the best loved 
country frolic is the field day, or all-day meeting in 
the open air. The families begin to gather early in the 
morning with their hampers of food supplies and for 
eight or ten hours they give themselves over to sociabil- 
ity, recreation and instruction. From the beginning, 
the Grange used the field day as the best form of coun- 
try sociability, the church has made use of it often, and 
every leader of country life recognizes it as a helpful 
institution. One of the chief advantages of the field 
day is that all the family can go and take part. Then 
there is always plenty to eat. One country woman told 


268 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


me that when she was going to a field day, she figured 
on three times what the family would ordinarily eat, and 
multiplied it by four! Many of the women must 
follow the same plan, for at any country field day that 
I have attended, the women could provide for an al- 
most unlimited number of basketless visitors—and yet 
carry home left-over food at night. 

The program for the field day can include almost 
anything. Usually there are a few speeches by visiting 
speakers. The county agent often speaks, and one of 
the local ministers. There is music by the boys’ band 
or orchestra, the girls sing choruses, and there is 
an old fiddlers’ contest. Nearly always there is a 
ball-game in the afternoon—sometimes between the 
boys and the older men of the community. There are 
running matches, jumping matches, three-legged races, 
and other track events and every amusing stunt they 
can think of for the amusement of the spectators. 
Someone brings a croquet set along and groups of the 
girls and boys play the game in succession. The older 
men enjoy themselves pitching horseshoes. Meanwhile 
the very little children run about wherever they please, 
amuse themselves with the swings and the sand pile, 
and when they get tired are put to sleep on blankets in 
the shade of the trees. 

By the time evening comes and the remnants of the 
supper are packed away, everybody is pretty well worn 
out with the day’s activities, and the tired children fall 
asleep on the way home. But, one and all, they have 
gained something from the day’s recreation. Old 
friendships have been renewed and new friendships 


SOCIAL LIFE 269 


begun. The woman who has been busy and _ neglect- 
ful of her neighborly duties makes a promise to herself 
to see more of Granny Smith this year, to carry cheer 
and comfort to this family or that, and to arrange for 
visits between her boy and other boys who have im- 
pressed her as desirable companions. She has probably 
also learned something of advantage about her daily 
problems—of new conveniences or new short cuts which 
will make her work somewhat easier in the future. Al- 
together the field day is looked back upon with pleasure 
as a worth-while break in the family life. 

A recent addition to the field day has been the play 
festival in which the children, and particularly the 
girls, take a greater part than before. The play festi- 
val may consist of games, singing, folk-dancing, march- 
ing, a little pageant, a parade on ponies, calves, and 
bicycles; or anything else that the children can do and 
enjoy doing. If it is carefully planned, it is certain to 
be well received and enjoyed by the grown people as 
well as by the children. 


THE CHAUTAUQUA 


Next after the field day most country people would 
place the annual week of Chautauqua. It is not, of 
course, a local undertaking, but there is so much for the 
people of the community to do in arranging for it, 
raising funds, and taking part in its activities that it 
seems almost a neighborhood institution. For the 
Chautauqua is primarily an outdoor, country enter- 
prise and it draws its annual audience of something 


270 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


like 35,000,000 people, chiefly from the farms and vil- 
lages and small towns. It is undoubtedly one of the 
best means of taking entertainment and instruction to 
the country districts at small cost. Almost all the 
Chautauqua companies are good. Hach presents a 
week of varied entertainment and instruction, ranging 
from lectures on national ideals, and concerts of good 
music, to talks on homemaking, humorous numbers and 
story-telling for the children. Nearly all of them pre- 
sent one good play, and train the local people to take 
part in a simple festival or pageant. Making as it does 
so wide a variety of appeals, the local Chautauqua not 
infrequently stimulates the interest of the country boy 
or girl in some definite direction. 


Tue CoMMUNITY PAGEANT 


The community pageant is nothing but a big series 
of living pictures or pantomimes in which the local peo- 
ple act out their ideas of local history, just as the little 
child acts out his idea of the fairy tales—and in both 
eases the attempt at expression is a great deal of fun. 
We are all children in our delight in dressing up in 
queer costumes and playing a part, if we are quite 
sure our grown-up dignity will not suffer too much in 
the process, and the community pageant gives just the 
right opportunity. Nothing can equal the enthusiasm 
with which the people who have once become interested 
in pageantry ferret out the details of their history and 
act the most striking incidents in pageantry episodes. 


SOCIAL LIFE 271 


They suddenly realize that they are a part of the great 
world, and that down their big road or their main street 
all the currents of national history have flowed, and 
will continue to flow for all time to come. They are 
lifted out of the humdrum of their daily lives in seeing 
themselves in their relation to great historical events, 
and this exaltation of spirit has made many a small- 
town pageant significant and beautiful quite out of pro- 
portion to its size and its cost. 

Perhaps the best thing about a pageant is that it can 
be almost infinitely adapted to local conditions. It 
can use almost any kind of material effectively and can 
be performed in the particular beauty spot which is the 
pride of the community. It is often a purely local 
product. Any local person with some ability for man- 
aging people and some artistic ability, who can devote 
time and energy to the work, can give a fairly success- 
ful performance. And the community will have an ad- 
ditional reason for pride in that the entire production 
has been made at home. Sometimes a young girl just 
out of college and eager to do something for her home ~ 
community is the local pageant-manager. She has seen 
pageants presented at college, and she can learn the 
general principles of pageantry from books and magazine 
articles on the subject. 

As soon as it has been decided to give a pageant, a 
meeting is called of all persons who will probably be 
interested and helpful, and the general plan of organ- 
ization worked out. Of course the selection of the 
pageant-manager is of first importance, since he assumes 


2712 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


control of the entire organization and has the final voice 
on all plans. Usually, it is true, the person who has 
been instrumental in arousing the local interest in 
pageantry is chosen, but it gives him confidence to be 
elected by the general meeting. 

The choice of material for the pageant is very im- 
portant. Most popular in the smaller communities is 
the historical pageant, made up of significant bits of 
local history presented in a series of pictures or pan- 
tomimes—reviewed and interpreted by the Spirit of the 
Community, America, or some other symbolic figure. 
Even though the wording is crude, if the real spirit 
of the locality is expressed and the historical incidents 
are well presented, the general effect is good. The 
young pageant-writer can get many valuable sugges- 
tions from pageants written for other communities. 
Very often a general historical pageant can be adapted 
to the local history. For instance, a pageant of the 
westward movement of the pioneers can be adapted to 
the use of almost any community west of the AI- 
leghanies. In adapting it, the general pioneers are given 
the names of the first settlers of that locality, the Indian 
hunter becomes Daniel Boone, Lewis Wetzel, Davy 
Crockett, or whoever was the local hero in Indian days, 
Civil War scenes are made to celebrate some local gen- 
eral or other leader, and so on with each episode in the 
pageant. Such an adaptation is very satisfactory if the 
pageant-manager has the courage to throw aside every- 
thing which does not serve to interpret the life of his 
own community and to make the necessary additions 
from the local history, 


SOCIAL LIFE 273 


The symbolic pageant, which presents the life of the 
community or life in general by means of symbolic 
figures, is often artistic and beautiful. For this reason 
symbolic pageants consisting of groups of dancers, grace- 
ful pantomimes and colorful processions, have been 
very popular. But unless good musicians and good 
teachers of rhythmic dancing are available the historical 
pageant is the better choice for the small community. 

As soon as the pageant has been written or adapted 
the working out begins. The leaders of the episodes are 
chosen so that there is a democratic representation of 
the community. Sometimes each church and each large 
organization is represented by a group. It is important 
that these leaders be persons of ability for each is held 
strictly accountable for the success or failure of her 
episode. She chooses and trains the players, has charge 
of any properties that are necessary, and sees that her 
players are properly costumed for the presentation. 
It adds greatly to the interest if descendants of the 
historical persons can represent them in the pageant. 
Persons for speaking parts should of course have good 
voices. Any number of persons can be used, the extras 
serving as a background for those taking part in the 
action. Too large groups are unwieldy, yet it is desir- 
able to have a few extra persons in each episode, so that 
the places of players who may drop out at the last mo- 
ment can be filled by those who are familiar with the 
action. 

At least two meetings of each episode group are held 
before the first general rehearsal. At the first meeting 
the leader tells the players the story of the part they are 


274 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


to give and asks their suggestions for presenting it. All 
suggestions are tried out until the leader gains some 
idea of the best form for the action as well as of the 
persons who are best fitted for the parts. Parts are 
then assigned and the action is repeated several times. 
The second meeting is held, if possible, on the ground 
where the pageant is to be presented. The pageant- 
manager should be present to assign a place to the 
group, to criticise the action as planned, to make any 
suggestions necessary to make the episode fit the rest of 
the pageant. Then follow two or three rehearsals of the 
entire cast, when each episode group has an opportunity 
to perfect its action. The orchestra, which is to play 
for the pageant, should be present at rehearsals so that 
the musicians will know exactly what is expected of 
them. If possible, it is best to have the last rehearsal 
in costume, with every detail carried out as in the final 
presentation. 

In costuming the pageant, almost the whole commu- 
nity ean take part. Old costumes of some of the his- 
torical periods represented can usually be found in some 
of the attics of the neighborhood. The older people 
will enjoy giving descriptions of the costumes worn in 
their youth and will lend old swords, Civil War rifles, 
fans, combs, and other properties of the period for use 
in the pageant. Effective costumes can be made from 
inexpensive materials or old materials dyed in artistic 
shades, and sometimes the local storekeepers will give 
bolts of material which have been long on their shelves. 
In general, the important figures in a group are dressed 
in bright or ight colors and persons in the background 


SOCIAL LIFE 275 


in darker and duller shades. Perhaps the local dress- 
maker will superintend the cutting and fitting of the 
garments and the women of the neighborhood can help 
with the sewing. The style of colonial dress is well 
known, and an effective ball-room scene can be copied 
from pictures of the period, in old rose, blue, and 
creamy yellow sateen and gaily flowered cretonnes. It 
is well to remember, however, that Revolutionary leaders 
did not attend to business affairs garbed in lace and gay 
satin. In a pioneer episode, the men wear ill-fitting 
trousers of gray or brown homespun held up by 
‘‘galluses’’ of the same material, over shirts of bright 
color. The pioneer women wear tight-waisted, full- 
skirted dresses of dark colors with bright aprons, or 
bright calico dresses for best wear, Indians wear suits 
of brown canton-flannel, fringed to simulate buckskin, 
decorations of bright colors and head-dresses of feathers, 
Their faces and hands are copper-color, with blue and 
yellow war paint. If the attics do not yield a good 
collection of hoop-skirts and blue or gray uniforms for 
the Civil War episode, the costumes can be copied from 
old pictures. 

Advertising for the pageant can best be done with 
bright, artistic posters, large enough to attract atten- 
tion. It will arouse interest to announce small prizes 
for the best posters made by school children. News- 
paper advertising should take the form of little stories 
about the pageant. Each episode can be written up 
with the names of persons in the cast and something 
about the incident they are to portray. Descendants of 
the early settlers taking part in the pageant, old cos- 


216 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


tumes, spinning wheels or other historical properties will 
furnish good news items. 

If all has gone well, the final performance is a real 
community event. The players dress in their costumes 
at home and their gay presence on the streets and in the 
crowds on the way to the pageant grounds add to the 
interest. At the grounds the costumed pages or ushers 
take care of the seating, the orchestra plays an opening 
program, everyone is in a holiday humor and eager for 
the pageant to begin. Long lines of automobiles from 
the country and neighboring towns are parked near and 
old friends are greeting one another. Behind the 
scenes, the Greek goddesses admire the drapery of their 
costumes, the Civil War general assumes his most 
military air, the Spirit of the Community adjusts her 
erown and tries her voice on a few lines, and all the 
other players begin to enter into the occasion and re- 
solve to do their best before their friends and neighbors. 
In spite of any slips at the last moment, if the pageant 
has been well directed, it will be a success and the 
pageant-manager will receive his full share of praise 
and appreciation. Some country communities have 
drawn crowds of 2,500 people to such a local pageant. 

The pageant is valuable to the community because 
it unifies the people by getting every one at work 
upon a common object. It adds dignity to the local 
hfe by showing how national history has found expres- 
sion in the community at different periods. It gives 
something in which the young people can take an 
active part without fear of censure; it helps the middle- 
aged to renew their youth, and brings a deeper vener- 


SOCIAL LIFE 277 


ation for the old people and their memories of early days. 
So it is no wonder that a successful pageant always de- 
velops a new pride in the community and a desire to 
make it worthy of its history and increasingly important 
in the story of the future. 


THe LitttE Country THEATER 


Another opportunity for training the country boys 
and girls has been developed in the Little Country 
Theater. This movement first came into prominence 
with the work of Dr. A. G. Arvold, of the University of 
North Dakota, who in his work with country boys and 
girls taught them how to write plays illustrating country 
life, prepare the necessary scenery and present the ac- 
tion. These became very popular with the young 
people and with their audiences, and immediately dra- 
matic work was recognized as one of the best forms of 
recreation for country boys and girls. Some of the ex- 
tension leaders in other States saw the possibilities of 
the dramatic method in teaching the latest ideas in 
agriculture and country life. The University of Min- 
nesota published ‘‘Back to the Farm,’’ a three-act play 
on the value of scientific methods in farming, and 
‘‘Kindling the Hearthfire,’’? a three-act play on home 
economics. And Ohio State University published ‘‘The 
Cross-Roads Meetin’ House,’’ a three-act play on the 
country church. These plays were first acted by stu- 
dents at the annual Farmers’ Week before hundreds 
of people, then before many other audiences gathered 
in town halls, churches, or tents, all over the State. 


278 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Later they were presented by groups of community 
players, and by other college groups in nearly every 
State in the Union. The New York Agricultural 
College has also been a leader in dramatic work for 
rural people and has prepared a very helpful list of 
plays and books on play production. 

A newer feature of the movement is the Little Country 
Theatre at state and county fairs. Several communities 
prepare plays for presentation—there is a prize for 
the best production—and present them in a hall 
or tent at the fair. A great deal of rivalry de- 
velops among the groups and the plays are so popular 
with the fair crowds that sometimes three performances 
are given a day. At the Genesee County fair, New 
York, people stood in line for an hour before each per- 
formance, waiting for the Little Theater to open its 
doors. Several other fairs in New York have these play 
contests also—the expense of staging, music, and prizes 
being met by the small fee charged for admission. 
At the Iowa State fair three one-act plays were staged, 
with two performances each day, and there were in ad- 
dition lectures by experts on the art of make-up and of 
Scene-painting. 

One of the best uses for dramatics is in the one-act 
play lasting from fifteen to thirty minutes, which is 
staged as a part of a community entertainment. It is 
much easier to prepare than a full evening performance, 
and gives the young people good training which can be 
used later in more elaborate productions. Nothing has 
more reviving power upon a bored organization group 
than a bit of good acting presented by the people that 


SOCIAL LIFE 279 


they know. Many a Grange lecturer or other com- 
munity leader has found that a play, however simple, 
is always the hit of the evening and draws forth more 
favorable comment than anything else he can furnish 
for entertainment. And putting on a one-act play for 
a community gathering is not a very difficult task even 
for an untrained leader. If the community hall does 
not have a regular stage a play can be chosen which does 
not need a stage. Usually some boy will take delight 
in working out the practical details, and the boy will 
take more interest in the organization when he finds that 
such service is appreciated. Some of the simpler plays 
have been presented under all possible conditions—from 
the big stage in a city theater before a thousand people, 
to the corner of somebody’s sitting-room before a meeting 
of the small-town Ladies’ Aid Society. 

Since ‘‘the play’s the thing,’’ the first and most im- 
portant task is the choice of the play, for not only the 
kind of play but also the setting and the number of 
persons available to take the parts must be considered. 
Possible entrances and exits must be taken into account 
and if no curtain is available, it is best to choose a play 
without a tableau at the end, so that the players can 
walk off without embarrassment when the play is fin- 
ished. Usually the fewer the persons taking part the 
better because of the difficulty of getting a large number 
together for rehearsals. Some good plays, however, give 
an opportunity for the use of several persons without 
speaking parts and these can be trained in one or two 
rehearsals with the other members of the east. 

The easiest play to present is a simple comedy with 


280 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


characters much like ourselves, and its action rising to 
a good climax which leads the audience to a hearty 
laugh at the end or to a deeper understanding of some 
side of life with which they are familiar. Unfortu- 
nately, really good one-act plays of this kind are not 
very numerous—too many of the Little Theater plays 
requiring elaborate settings or expert acting to be 
very useful for untrained players. And many short 
plays deal with the unpleasant sides of life, and so are 
not desirable for general community meetings. 
When the cast is chosen, rehearsals begin at once. If 
possible, every rehearsal should be held in the hall where 
the play is to be given, because the entrances and exits 
and the amount of space to be covered on the stage 
present real problems to the young player. If this is 
impossible, part of a room can be blocked off with en- 
trances and exits like those in the community hall. Even 
at the very first rehearsal, when the players read their 
parts from the book, they should be put through all the 
general business of entering and leaving the stage, sit- 
ting down and getting up and moving about, just as they 
are to do it at the final performance. At the second re- 
hearsal, the players should know their parts well enough 
to go through them with the help of some prompting. 
Every detail of the acting should be worked out at once. 
For instance if a man in the cast is to smash a vase in 
the play, in every rehearsal he should be given a block 
of wood or something to ‘‘smash’’ with appropriate 
gestures—reserving, of course, the real vase for the final 
performance. If a girl is to carry a fan, she should use 
a fan of some sort in every rehearsal. Indeed, every 


SOCIAL LIFE 281 


player should know exactly what he is to do with his 
feet and his hands at every moment of the action—and 
he should do it at every rehearsal. 

Each player must be sure of his cues—that is, the last 
words of the speaker he is to follow, for any drag be- 
tween speeches, unless it is an intended hesitation, 1s 
fatal to the good effect of the play. One of the most 
glaring defects of the average amateur play is the failure 
of the following speaker to cut in on an interrupted 
Sentence, as: 





JoHN. Why, George, I think I’m sure I 
George. (Angrily) What you think doesn’t make any 
difference. 


Too often John’s speech is left hanging awkwardly 
in the air while he waits to be interrupted! In fact, 
George should cut in—not at the end of the speech— 
but at ‘‘sure.’’ Then the speaker is really interrupted. 

It is the director’s task to conduct the rehearsals in 
a business-like manner. If any one of the players is too 
busy or too indifferent to attend, the director should 
have a substitute in mind who, though perhaps not so 
good a player, will at least be more dependable. The 
work should begin as promptly as possible and the 
members of the cast held down strictly to business, with 
a promise of some real fun after the rehearsal is over. 
One hour is long enough to rehearse a one-act play. 
From six to eight rehearsals are required for a one-act 
play, though of course the time varies greatly. The time 
covered may be from three weeks to a month. That is, 
if the organization has monthly meetings, the director, 


282 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


having copies of the play ready, can announce the names 
of the players at one meeting and be ready for the per-. 
formance at the next, if the members of the cast can 
give a reasonable amount of time to the rehearsals. Too 
much time is often a disadvantage as the players may 
lose interest. 

For the simplest one-act play, special costumes are 
not necessary, the players wearing their usual clothes 
or—if they wish a touch of the unusual—borrowing 
suitable clothes from their friends. Many organizations, 
in which the young people delight in presenting plays, 
have a big strong-box in which are kept all costumes, 
make-up materials and smaller stage properties. Many 
of these can be used for later plays or lent to other or- 
ganizations in the neighborhood. 

If the play has been given a little publicity among the 
members, there will be sure to be a record-breaking 
erowd at the meeting. Everybody will want to know 
what John or Julia or Mary can do in a real play, and 
the hard-working director will receive his share of the 
favorable comments when the play is over. But this 
first production need not be the last of the uses of the 
little play. Other organizations will be only too glad to — 
arrange for the players to visit them and give a per- 
formance for their members, an excursion which the 
young people will be sure to enjoy greatly. 


Music 


Everybody likes to sing and almost everybody ean 
play some sort of musical instrument with a little 


SOCIAL LIFE 283 


training, so vocal and instrumental music should be a 
large part of the community recreation. During the 
World War ‘‘community sings’’ became very popular 
and in most neighborhoods all that is needed to revive 
an interest in music is an enthusiastic leader for group 
singing. Each community group should have its active 
committee on music to organize choruses, duets, and 
quartettes, and arrange for solo singing. And every 
eountry boy or girl with musical talent should be 
in the local band or orchestra. A violin and piano 
will make a beginning, and other instruments can be 
added as other young people learn to play. Many farm 
families can muster a small orchestra of their own, and 
if some of the neighbor boys and girls can drop in for 
the evening with their instruments, one of the best forms 
of community recreation can be developed. 


DANCING AND FoLK GAMES 


There is a widespread belief among city people that 
all country people object to any kind of dancing, but this 
is certainly not borne out by my own observation of 
country life. Country people do usually object to public 
dances and to some of the so-called ‘‘round dances,’’ 
but properly supervised dancing of some kinds has 
always been considered proper. At the very beginning 
the Grange included in its ritual a harvest dance, similar 
to the folk dances or the old-time country dances, and 
though it has been objected to occasionally by individual 
Grangers, it still holds its place. Certainly there can- 
not be any very serious objection to it among the 800,000 


284 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


country members, or it would long since have been taken 
out of the ritual. 

It is fortunate that the country men and women 
take so liberal a view, for there is nothing which young 
people resent more than objections to things which they 
ean honestly see no harm in—and certainly the Virginia 
reel and the folk dances, and the rhythmic dancing now 
becoming so popular among the girls, are quite innocent. 
Rhythmic dancing is particularly valuable for little 
country girls because it gives them grace and ease of 
manner as nothing else will, and a well-rounded physical 
development. 

In connection with the dancing diversions, many of 
the old-time folk games may well be revived. Nearly 
every locality has its singing games, country dances, and 
old ballads of surpassing sweetness that deserve to be 
known and sung by all the community. Other old-time 
amusements—the spelling matches, singing contests, 
fiddlers’ contests, quilting parties, ete., may also be 
revived for community entertainments. 


CAMPING 


Most of the young people’s organizations lay great 
stress upon camping as a means of developing initiative 
and independence of character. Even the country boy, 
who spends so much of his time in the open air, will 
enjoy getting ‘‘back to nature’’ and crude primitive 
conditions in a camp in the woods, whether he is with 
a group of other boys or the whole family goes camping 
together. And the country girl, whose regular activities 


SOCIAL LIFE 285 


keep her about the house, needs the contact with new 
things and new ideals. In the camp she is one of the 
gang, she learns the boy’s standards of honesty and 
loyalty, how to meet an emergency efficiently, and many 
interesting facts about birds, animals and trees which 
she would not learn in the ordinary environment of her 
home. In fact, any country boy or girl who has not 
known the joys of ‘‘camping out’’ in the woods has 
missed one of the pleasantest experiences of country life. 


CHAPTER XIII 


POLITICS AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 


HE woman on the farm has never been greatly 

excited over woman’s rights. In fact she has 
been a good deal more concerned with her 

duties than with her rights, and she has had her hands 
so full of immediate tasks that she has not been inclined 
to seek for new jobs to conquer. But now that suffrage 
is an accomplished fact, the progressive country woman 
considers it just as much her duty to vote as to bake 
the bread or to feed the chickens—it is a part of her 
job. In fact, she always took an interest in politics 
because she had time to read and to think about national 
problems. A farm woman from South Dakota gays: 
‘“My mother always kept up with political affairs and 
told dad whom to vote for when he went to the polls. 
She could just as well have voted herself.’? My cor- 
respondents agree that home and husband and children 
come first in the woman’s interest, but they doubt 
whether these can be adequately served unless she takes 
part in politics. A California woman writes: ‘‘Surely 
a woman must know about the needs of the country, 
else how is she to train her sons to become honest reliable 
servants of the public at some later day? Our papers 


are full of disgusting exposures and I wonder some- 
286 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 287 


times if the mothers of those men weren’t partly to 
blame.’’ And as the children grow older and release 
the mother from some of her burdens, she may well 
give some attention to the public welfare. ‘‘I think 
the thing for middle-aged women to do is to take up 
some kind of political or organization work,’’ says one 
woman. ‘“‘They have matured minds. They have been 
through the mill. They know what is needed and they 
ought to turn in and help bring it about.’’ 

Many of them wish to use the ballot for the improve- 
ment of local conditions. A West Virginia woman 
says, ‘‘Farm women should take part in civic affairs 
at least to the extent of securing better local conditions; 
first, in the enforcement of law—prohibition, school at- 
tendance, health laws and vital statistics; second, in 
working and planning for better schools, better sani- 
tary and health conditions, and more wholesome recre- 
ation for the country people.’’ And she is to bring 
these things about not only by voting intelligently but 
also by accepting offices when she can. A California 
woman says: ‘‘I would favor her accepting an office 
if she has time for the duties of the position. Women 
have a fuller realization of the children’s needs than 
the men. A woman school trustee in our district went 
to the county road supervisors and got a bridge put over 
a little draw in the road, where there is always a 
running stream in the rainy season. The men had 
talked about a bridge for years, while the children econ- 
tinued to cross on stepping-stones or, in extra high 
water time, crept along on a shaky board fence to a place 
narrow enough to jump across.”’ 


288 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


They think of voting as the individual citizen’s way 
of influencing the laws, and every farm woman knows 
what the wrong kind of laws can do to her husband’s 
business. An Ohio woman says, ‘‘Farm women are 
interested in legislation because the occupation of farm- 
ing is more affected by state and federal laws and by 
economic conditions the world over than any other busi- 
ness in the United States.’’ If she does not have time to 
vote, she is a slacker at her job of safeguarding her 
home from evil influences. One says, ‘‘If a woman tells 
me she has no time for politics, I tell her that the people 
who are working against our interests are finding time 
for politics and voting every time they have a chance!”’ 

They believe that a woman should affiliate herself with 
some party, try to make that party right and then 
support it whole-heartedly—and get the men to support 
it, too. In order to do this, they need to learn some- 
thing of the historical background of the party—why it 
was formed in the beginning and what its accomplish- 
ments have been. This involves a study of politics and 
in some communities the women have formed ‘‘Town 
and Country Clubs’’ for the study and discussion of 
political questions. It is an excellent way of developing 
a wider view, for the town women need to learn the 
country attitude toward political matters, as the coun- 
try women need to know that of the town. Women are 
all very new in political affairs and it is no disgrace to 
be ignorant. One cannot step out of one’s kitchen or 
garden and into a knowledge of government at a 
minute’s notice; even the men with all their training 
admit that they do not know a great deal about it yet. 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 289 


And the best way for the women to accomplish some- 
thing in politics is to seek the men’s advice and instruc- 
tion so that everybody can work together for a common 
cause. 

The farm woman’s political work will be more 
effective when she learns how to follow up an issue, once 
it is made. When a man is elected to the Legislature, 
or to Congress for a certain purpose, he is much more 
likely to see the thing through if he knows that his con- 
stituents have not forgotten it. So a reeular study of 
legislative programs is important and a brief note of 
approval or protest from time to time. For the legis- 
lator always wants to know what the voters are thinking, 
and it is well enough to remind him occasionally that 
you have not changed your mind! 

A real advance in human life is always a slow and 
painful process, and progress is always costly—so if one 
wants something done for the State or the nation, she 
must make up her mind that sacrifices are necessary and 
long-suffering patience. It is likely that for some years 
the country woman, and every other woman, must be 
eontent to work and to study in the field of polities 
without much active participation, confident that sooner 
or later she will make a real advance in human welfare. 


WoMEN’S NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 


iver since the suffrage amendment was ratified, 
the woman on the farm has felt the surge of feminine 
forces about her, the rallying of the woman power 
in organizations of their own to help guide the future 


290 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


destiny of the nation. New women’s organizations are 
springing up everywhere. It is like a great procession 
assembling, each unit bearing its own banner, but 
easily falling into step with all the rest because they 
are going in the same direction and have in general the 
same purposes. They are learning to keep in step, 
and all about the discipline necessary in great and im- 
portant forces, and the country woman would gladly 
join with them if it were only made possible. 

The women seem to be doing everything at once. The 
daily paper from the city is half filled with women’s 
activities. Dozens of clubs meet and discuss and lunch 
and dine together, large conferences, said to be nation- 
Wide in scope, assemble to discuss questions of national 
legislation, women leaders in politics get together to 
plan for coming elections. There are mothers’ associa- 
tions and patriotic associations, and forty other choice 
varieties of associations for women. I sometimes won- 
der, as I turn the pages of the paper, how the same 
women can possibly belong to them all, or if they do 
not, how the many organizations can possibly find 
women enough to go round. 

The number of these movements impressed me s0 
much that I was not surprised to receive a letter from 
another country woman saying that she was thinking 
the same thing. She had been reading the reports in 
the newspapers of the many national meetings and she 
had begun to wonder—as women always will—why she 
was not invited. Even when she scanned the reports 
very carefully, she could not find that any country 
woman was among those present, though the announce- 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 291 


ments had plainly stated that all the women of the 
United States would be represented. Even a women’s 
labor conference did not recognize her as a worker! 
And she wondered if the leaders had quite forgotten her, 
or if they thought she had nothing to say. 

After a bit of explanation, my correspondent writes: 

**T have been reading accounts of the part women are 
taking in state and national legislation and notice that 
the farm women have no representation whatever in 
any conventions conducted by women. Why is this 
true? Have they not been invited, or are they too in- 
different to take part? Two fifths of the women of the 
United States are rural. From their homes go forth the 
men and women who are making over and sustaining 
the life of the city and incidentally the nation. Country 
women do not pose as reformers, nor do they come with 
a grievance. They are a group of producers, the 
mothers of our most worth-while leaders, and are rich 
in experience and calm thought. Surely their repre- 
sentation in any convention or on any committee would 
be a benefit worthy of consideration. 

““Women in agriculture can be depended upon to do 
their just share of any phase of labor, whether that labor 
eall for mental, physical or spiritual strength. Can you 
not take up our cause and aid us in giving the farm 
woman a chance ?’’ 

Perhaps she is wrong about some of these conventions. 
At least the leaders of the women’s movements have ex- 
plained to me that the farm women were not included in 
the call, and I tried to pass on their explanations to her 
as well as I could. But I doubt if she understood. « It 


292 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


is rather confusing to one with a mathematical faculty 
to be told that a great national conference of represen- 
tative women left out more than two-fifths of the women 
of the nation at one fell swoop! 

Of course there is no intentional discrimination. The 
real reason is that the leaders in the many women’s 
movements are the women of the towns and cities, who 
have been freed from the heavier home duties by modern 
improvements, and so have had the leisure to become 
interested in civic and political matters. They see, not 
the nation as a whole, but the town and the city and the 
well-organized groups of women workers. Very few 
country women are yet so free; they are still tied by 
many of the primitive tasks of the making of a home. 
But they have felt the new urge for a larger life and as 
they knead the bread and do the family washing they 
are having time to think—and, thinking, they realize 
that if they were on the platform and at the couneil- 
table they could say some things which even the city 
women might do well to hear. One woman told me that 
every time she did the ironing, she took a topic about 
which she knew something and delivered an address to 
an exclusive audience of the baby and the family eat. 
She said it helped her to arrange her ideas in an orderly 
fashion and she knew the baby liked it—she was not 
so sure about the cat! That was a year ago, so that by 
this time she must have delivered some fifty-two 
addresses across the ironing board. And yet there are 
people who think that the country woman has nothing 
to say! 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 293 


The fact is that the average club-woman knows very 
little about country life problems or the agricultural 
situation. At most, she sees them from the point of 
view of the quality and quantity of food in her refriger- 
ator or her pantry. A farm is merely a place to get 
things to eat, at what seem fabulous prices. She does 
not realize—because her leaders have never yet pre- 
sented it to her—that the farm problem is a great 
human problem, and that upon its right solution may 
depend the very existence of the nation. 

It is true the country women are not generally or- 
ganized in strictly women’s organizations, yet they 
can be easily reached. The various farm organiza- 
tions include probably 500,000 women altogether. And 
although these organizations include both sexes, it 
Seems to me that some sort of affiliation might well be 
worked out between their women members and _ the 
city women’s organizations. Representation could be 
made on the basis of their women’s membership, so 
that the farm women could be given a voice in all the 
general meetings for the advancement of women. And 
even before such a plan can be matured, it is certainly 
little enough to ask that country women speakers be in- 
vited to address every general women’s conference, to 
give the rural point of view upon the subject under 
discussion. For the present assumption of leadership 
by so-called national groups of women which are not 
really national, has its dangers for the nation as well as 
for the women’s cause. They cannot know American 
life as it is, and we must doubt them all until they show 


294 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


a broader outlook upon the problems of the nation as a 
whole—country life and city life and small town life 
together. 


FARM WOMEN IN THE AGRICULTURAL CONFERENCE 


For perhaps the first time in history, the country 
woman was given recognition in national affairs 
when she was invited to take part in the great 
Agricultural Conference called by President Harding 
for January 23, 1922. She did not have a very big 
place, it is true, for there were only eighteen women 
to some three hundred men, but at least she was rec- 
ognized as having brains enough to discuss national 
questions. Among the country women who answered 
the call were: Mrs. John B. Black of Maryland, Mrs. 
Frank B. Black of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Nellie E. Blake- 
man of Connecticut, Mrs. H. F. Chaffee of North Dakota, 
Mrs. L. C. Chappell of South Carolina, Mrs. J. W. Jones 
of Maryland, Mrs. J. C. Ketcham of Michigan, Miss 
Neale S. Knowles of Iowa, Mrs. Albert Manning of New 
York, Mrs. W. C. Martin of Texas, Mrs. W. A. Mather 
of Virginia, Mrs. Charles W. Sewell of Indiana, and 
Mrs. Carl Williams of Oklahoma. 

A few of the women were placed upon the general 
economic committees dealing with questions of buying 
and selling, farm labor, ete., but the greater number 
worked upon Committee No. 11 on the Farm Population 
and Farm Home. A very bright and clever woman, 
Mrs. J. C. Ketcham of Michigan, was chairman of that 
section of the committee dealing with the farm home. 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 295 


Serving on the same committee were some of the most 
prominent specialists on country life problems in Amer- 
ica, but they soon discovered that the farm women’s 
knowledge of the practical problems of country living 
was even greater than their own. Most of the women 
had had experience as leaders of groups of country peo- 
ple. They knew all the handicaps under which the farm 
people struggle, and had sound and sensible ideas about 
how these handicaps could be removed or overcome. 
They knew what could be expected of country people 
in cooperative, community and church affairs and 
what could not be expected. They saw very clearly 
what the trained welfare workers do not always see, 
that city methods seldom get results in country districts 
because the ways of thought and the manner of life of 
the people are different. And they were intent upon 
securing the approval of the committee for methods 
which had been found practicable in country places. 

It is interesting to glance over the findings of this im- 
portant committee. Investigation should be made, they 
suggested, of the farm population to determine the 
reasons for the shifting of the people, and the best kinds 
of community work for the different kinds of com- 
munities. They also suggested that census reports on 
the farm population be compiled with as much care as 
those on the city population, with the line drawn clearly 
between people living in the open country and those 
living in the small towns. Heretofore most of the 
people covered by the so-called ‘‘country life statisties’’ 
have lived in small towns of less than 1000 population. 

In education they suggested that still further atten- 


296 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


tion be given to rural subjects in the rural schools, in- 
cluding the principles of rural codperation and home 
economics. And that secondary schools should be in 
reach of all the country people so that very young boys 
and girls need not be sent away from home to school. 
Extension work in home economies was recommended, 
provided the workers codperated with all the rural or- 
ganizations and did not single out some one for special 
favors. On the other hand, they asked all the rural 
organizations to include a study of food, clothing, 
housing, and child care in their regular programs. In 
welfare activities they insisted that country communities 
be given as good service as those in the cities. Free 
circulating libraries should bring books to the farmer’s 
door, or at least to his nearest village. Health agencies, 
such as hospitals, dispensaries, ete., should be provided 
for the country people as well as for the city people. 

But most important of all, they decided, was the 
recognition of the farm woman. In her they saw a tre- 
mendous force for good if it were rightly put to work 
on the problems of the nation. Too much of the talking 
heretofore has been done by those who persisted in 
looking upon country life as an economic, rather than a 
human problem., In reality, it is both, and there must 
be a proper consideration given to both sides of the 
question before our country life situation can be made 
much better. They saw that country and city must 
always be inter-dependent and that it is vitally necessary 
that they know each other and work together with 
mutual respect and understanding. One recommen- 
dation reads as follows: 


NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 297 


‘‘Recognizing the farm home is the heart not only of 
American agriculture but of the nation as well, we 
strongly urge that its power and influence be fully ap- 
preciated and used through the appointment of farm 
women as well as farm men to official positions in farm 
organizations, and through the selection of farm women 
for service on important national and state boards. This 
equal representation of country and city homes will add 
to the dignity of country life and serve to bring about 
a better understanding between country, town and city.’’ 

The farm women of the committee resented keenly the 
present fashion of magazines and newspapers to belittle 
the country woman, in stories representing her as having 
few home conveniences and, apparently, even fewer 
brains. It is true there are many overworked women 
on the farms—there are also in the city—and many of 
them work inefficiently. But when the most inefficient 
members of a large class of women are held up publicly 
as representing the average, it does much damage not 
only to their reputation as a class but to their morale 
as well. For this reason, they deplored greatly ‘‘the 
tendency of the press to depict occasional and extreme 
conditions of toil or hardship on the part of farm women 
as representing normal or usual conditions.’’ 

It is an important matter, this giving the farm woman 
a chance to speak her mind. She should demand it as 
a right and rise to every opportunity as a duty. Country 
people are always too much inclined to sit back and let 
someone else do the talking—when in most cases they 
could add.important points to the discussion. Laws and 
public institutions are brought about by talking, not by 


298 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


sitting back and thinking, and the country woman should 
always be ready to open her mouth and speak. It is the 
only way to be a good citizen and a happy one, for one 
who takes little part in public affairs will nearly always 
doubt the justice and the sanity of the public mind. 
And it is the task of woman on the farm of to-day and 
to-morrow to see that in all matters bearing upon coun- 
try life, the nation hears the rural districts speaking, 
clearly and distinctly. 


CHAPTER XIV 


THE TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 


CouUNTRY AND CIty 


country woman on her first visit to the city who 

asked, ‘‘Why don’t they build the cities out in the 
country where they would have more room?’’ Why, 
indeed? It is true that city life has its great at- 
tractions—the crowding of people together makes it 
possible for all to have certain comforts and conven- 
iences which in the open country would be impossible. 
But there are many disadvantages. For it is at best 
an unnatural way of living, almost unknown to the long 
generations of our forbears who made us what we are. 
Some one has said the city is still but an experiment 
in living, helped out greatly in the last few years 
by the discoveries of science. And only a travesty 
on life is that crowded section of New York in which 
a half million people inhabit a square mile of land. 
Life in the country is more fundamentally sound because 
it develops those capabilities for which the race has been 
bred, in the hand to hand struggle with nature in 
the work with animals, with green growing things and 
with the soil. 


| HAVE always felt much in accord with the old 


299 


300 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


In the past few years I have been much interested in 
reading thousands of letters from country women, giving 
their ideas of the comparative values of country and 
city life. It was a significant fact that many of the 
writers were women who had had some years of experi- — 
ence with city life before coming to the country and so 
knew both sets of conditions from actual experience. 
The former city woman appreciates the country because 
she knows what it is to live in a tiny flat with the traffic 
rumbling by on the street in front and on the alley in 
the rear, and all the little annoyances of living day 
after day enclosed by walls so thin that one’s every 
action is likely to be commented upon by the neighbors. 
She knows what it is to get out of bed before daylight to 
get breakfast and pack lunch-boxes, so that the men of 
the family can be off on the long car-ride to their work. 
She knows what it is to eat stale food day after day 
with a staler and staler appetite, until the very thought 
of food is sickening. She has perhaps worked in a 
factory or an office and stopped every evening at the 
rank-smelling little delicatessen on the corner to buy 
food for her evening meal. She has had the experience, 
possibly, of working hard for ten or twelve years in the 
city and haying at the end nothing more than when 
she began. 

For in the city, fresh air, quiet, light and privacy 
are commodities—only to be had for much money. Only 
the near-millionaire can afford rooms as commodious and 
grounds as spacious as those of the average farm home. 
Many of the women speak with especial pride of their 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 301 


country ‘‘spare room,’’ that joy of every true woman’s 
heart, long since given over in town houses of middle- 
class people. The country spare room may be simple, 
but its gay cretonne curtains and shining furniture, its 
daintiness unrumpled by the daily living of the family, 
makes it almost a shrine to the woman who keeps the 
house. The town woman in the country finds a freedom 
undreamed of in the days when she felt herself under 
the constant surveillance of her landlord and her 
neighbors. She can come and go as she pleases; she can 
sing all day about her work whether her voice is melodi- 
ous or not; she can whistle; she can bang out gay little 
tunes on the piano; she can become a child again in 
roistering outdoor games with her children. In fact 
she is the captain of her own soul in all the little things 
that count so much in a woman’s existence. 

And it is a pleasure to hear of these women’s whole- 
souled delight in good food. Some of them had long 
known city food, to which much handling and cold 
storage and long shipments had done their worst, and 
they delight greatly in their beautiful well-filled cellars 
with an esthetic as well as a gastronomic joy. They 
speak so feelingly of sweet juicy hams and new-laid eggs, 
golden butter and batches of fragrant white bread, apple 
pies, berry pies, pumpkin pies, barrels of sparkling cider, 
fresh crisp vegetables, rich ice cream, luscious water- 
melons and peaches, pungent mincemeat, and crunchy 
spiced pickles that the reader is almost consumed with 
hunger—and envy. It is the supreme satisfaction of the 
country woman thus to look upon her work for the 


302 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


family and to find it good, and to know that whatever 
happens during the long winter, her dear ones will not 
suffer from hunger. 

It is true that the work of the country woman is hard; 
all the women admit that, and many of them long 
for the means to pay for labor-saving conveniences 
which would give them more leisure. But they insist 
that the hard word is healthful. They boast that they 
are active and healthy, that their cheeks are rosy and 
their complexions good and their hair ungrayed at 
an age when the city woman needs all the aids of 
the beauty parlors to make herself presentable. It is 
the endless struggle to ‘‘keep up’’ that changes the looks 
of a woman, they say—not age or hard work. They 
know that country lfe will always call for hard work 
both of body and brain and they laugh at the fancy 
pictures one sometimes sees of the farmer riding his 
plow or milking his cows by machinery, which often 
lead the city woman to believe that all the drudgery 
has been taken out of farm work. It is true that the 
farmer has had some of his burdens lifted by machinery, 
but the speeding up of production necessary to pay for 
the high-priced machines has added other burdens both 
of work and worry, and he still has plenty of use for his 
good muscles during the farm day. And the country 
woman expects to work and to train her children to work 
to keep up with the widely varied activities of the farm 
home, in which the family comfort is still the wages of 
much hard labor. 

For, though the Lord provides bountifully for country 
folk, He requires at the same time an initiative on their - 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 303 


part to take advantage of His kind provision. A really 
shiftless family will almost starve in the midst of plenty, 
for the want of skill and foresight in preparing for its 
needs. It is this requirement of our American country 
life which makes the poor immigrants shun it like the 
plague. They do not know how to pioneer, how to think 
for themselves in the American fashion; they must be 
provided for from meal to meal, from pay check to pay 
check, without any effort on their part in looking ahead. 
The country is unkind to them. But the city provides 
their next meal at the corner store and their thinking, 
so far as their work is concerned, is done for them by the 
foreman of the gang—so they love the city and cling 
Tors. 

Life has its compensations everywhere, and one can- 
not judge for another as to the best place to live, because 
a comfortable life depends so largely upon the type of 
personality. For the country-minded man, the country 
is the only place in which he can be really happy, and 
for the city-minded man, the city is the only place. On 
the whole, things balance up fairly well. We are all 
trying our best to escape the great curse of work—yet 
none of us is escaping, nor ever will escape entirely. If 
we escape work with our hands, we merely work our 
brains the harder. If we escape expending our physical 
energy over the task of life, it usually takes the toll from 
our nervous energy. So with all our modern labor- 
saving inventions, the city woman is often over-worked, 
even though most of the physical burdens have been 
lifted from her shoulders. 

The older women tell me of the great hopes they had 


304 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


when first the sewing machine became common in the 
home. It seemed sent direct from heaven to liberate 
them from toil. Yet in a few years the styles in 
underwear demanded petticoats full three yards wide, 
reaching to the floor, and solidly tucked from hem to 
waistband! Given the machine, the women simply elabo- 
rated their garments until they were as much work as 
before. Such a tyrant does even the best labor-saving 
invention sometimes become! The modern development 
of ready-made garments also takes toll of our strength. 
It is true we are saved the actual making of the garment, 
but the average woman must spend much worrisome 
shopping or ordering by mail, before she can assure her- 
self that the quality of the materials and the eut and 
fit and style are what she desires. We all know that 
many times it would really be less trouble to sit down 
at the machine with a good pattern and a known quality 
of material and produce the garment ourselves—as in- 
deed the country women pretty generally do. 

And so in the city the saving of work in one direction 
merely leads to a complication of life and an addition 
of non-essentials until one is still busy all the day long. 
When I meet the city women over their afternoon tea 
at the home of a friend in the city, I am fairly appalled 
by their tales of woe—of the incompetent servants, the 
poor quality of what one buys nowadays, the uncertainty 
of the workmen who are needed for some jobs around 
the house, and the general high cost of living. If I 
ask even the so-called ‘‘idle rich,’’ I hear much the 
same story of the hard conditions of their lives. 

Yet I have a great admiration for the city woman, 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 305 


When a city friend and I are out together, I marvel at 
her quick replies to the passing comment (my own clever 
remarks usually occur to me after I have reached home). 
Her calmness and poise as she threads her way among 
the automobiles in the street almost awes me—for I am 
as skittish as a country-bred horse when I set out from 
one curb to the other. I admire her nimbleness of mind 
upon the issues of the day and her knowledge of ‘‘ what 
is what’’ among people in the city, and most of all I 
envy her her unerring taste in suits and hats and shoes 
and gloves. I envy, too, her quick adjustment to new 
things. When she learns of a new labor-saving con- 
venience, she does not have to struggle with qualms of 
fear about its success or its economy. No, she gives it 
a keen glance or two—adapts herself to the new idea— 
and is enjoying its benefits long before I am well over the 
first struggle with my conscience. 

So it is a good thing for country and city to get to- 
gether once in a while, because each has abilities which 
the other lacks, and an interchange of viewpoints is al- 
ways good for the soul. There was once a good old rule 
that the city friends and relatives spent a month in the 
country in summer and the country folks paid back the 
visit in full in the winter—and there is no better way 
(if the bargain is strictly adhered to on both sides), to 
bring country and city together. Then each can partake 
of the culture of the other. A city woman who sees the 
work of the busy farm day will never again be guilty of 
thinking that a farmer’s food ‘‘doesn’t cost him any- 
thing.’’ She can often make arrangements for a part of 
her winter supplies to come direct from the farm she 


806 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


visits. And the country woman in seeing the city 
woman’s problems day by day, will no doubt find that 
they are actually more difficult than they seemed at long 
range. She can also do her shopping for clothing and 
house furnishings in the city stores where the latest 
things are on display. -And in the end both will be the 
better for the interchange of experiences. 

For when there is friction between country and city 
in America, it is because of a narrowness of view 
which emphasizes the accidental peculiarities of the other 
person. Such a narrowness of view sometimes leads the 
city woman to think that the country woman is awkward 
and lacking in social ability, with little of the real 
culture and graces of the city women she knows. And 
in her turn the country woman of the narrow view 
thinks the city woman snobbish and lazy, giving her life 
to frivolities, perhaps even to immoralities. When as a 
matter of fact, the women are equally good and equally 
eapable. They are merely exaggerating the worst 
attributes which each takes on from her environment, 
and failing to see through to the real woman beneath. 
Yet if they knew each other better, they would feel the 
greatest mutual understanding. 

The farm woman should feel proud that she lives in 
the country. Edwin Markham, the great poet, says: 
‘*T sometimes think that only men with lop-sided brains 
love to live in the city. God never made a city—He 
made a garden. City life is largely the cause of the 
general nervous breakdown of the race. This is an age 
of the nerves, and the city is responsible for it. My 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 307 


ideal is a life that has the freshness and freedom of the 
country, and yet is within easy access of the town, where 
men can go and transact business. In my business, that 
of making verse, I need the peace of the country, which 
is the peace of God. But I like to come into contact 
with men, and so I go to town. I think the city of the 
future will not be crowded by city dwellers—we are 
coming to know too much for that. But, for the pres- 
ent, man is still lop-sided.’’ 

For the ideal life is country and city life blended, 
with a considerable experience of both for each indi- 
vidual. The people who really get the most out of a 
city are not those who live in it all the time, but those 
who visit it occasionally with their minds fresh from 
contact with a different set of experiences. And perhaps 
in the same way, the city person can appreciate the 
country in a way which country-dwellers cannot, because 
it is not the background of their everyday lives. In 
England and in France many people so arrange their 
lives that they can spend a part of the time in each en- 
vironment. It may be that this is not feasible in Amer- 
ica except for the very rich, but at least we Americans 
have no wish to build a wall about the rural life any more 
than we wish to build a wall about the city. We want to 
bring them close together and give every possible op- 
portunity in both for our ambitious young people. 


Toe Trutra Asout Country LIFE 


‘‘Tt’s no time for just talk about country life,’’ a 
country woman from the West writes me, ‘‘somebody’s 


308 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


got to tell the God’s truth!’’ And certainly there 
never was a time when it was so important to set forth 
the real facts of country living. Americans generally 
would like to know the truth about the country, but 
they are so beset on all sides by half-truths and 
misstatements that they are in danger of being led 
astray. Of course there is some justification for the 
varying moods of writers and speakers upon country 
life. Somebody has said that one can never really 
know a great city because it is in reality not one, but 
millions of citles—because to no two of its citizens does 
it show the same aspect of its life. So I suppose the 
open country and its people do show a new phase to 
every comer, in a changing and many-sided life. But 
even this is no excuse, it seems to me, for the epidemic 
shifts of public opinion on our American country life. 

We all remember how, just a few years ago, it was 
the ‘‘back to the farm’’ idea. Every city writer was 
telling of the joys of country life—the independence of 
the farmer, the loaded table of food that ‘‘did n’t cost 
anything,’’ and the fresh air and sunlight without 
money and without price. Those of us who lived in the 
country and still protested about the conditions of our 
life, the lack of conveniences in our homes, and the less 
than living wage, were branded as fault-finders, too 
stupid to appreciate the great blessing of living in the 
glorious country. Reporters came to interview us and 
to drink our ambrosial buttermilk fresh from the churn. 
But whenever we dwelt upon the discouraging side of 
our life, they put up their notebooks and firmly guided 
us to other topics. ‘‘We must have optimism,’’ they 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 309 


said. ‘‘You are too far removed from the current of 
popular thought to realize the value of a cheerful view 
of life.’’ We were, I suppose. Country people are 
Seldom Pollyannas—they face facts that are too real to 
be set aside as lightly as that. 

So the country people were forced to look on while 
aged clerks and broken-down school teachers drew out 
their little savings and invested them in bleak acres 
that would not grow black-eyed peas—much less all 
those independent joys of country life they had been 
reading about in the ‘‘back to the farm’’ literature. 
And naturally, most of them lost their savings, and, 
broken in health by toil, returned to the city in poverty 
and distress. 

Perhaps it\was these disillusioned pilgrims of ‘‘ back 
to the farm’’ that turned the tide of public thinking in 
the opposite direction. At any rate, it was not long 
before the country people began to hear that there was 
something wrong in country life. Again we were 
interviewed, but this time for the disadvantages of 
living in the country, and we were about as unsatis- 
factory as pessimists as we had been as Pollyannas. 
We insisted upon telling of our country pleasures, our 
independence and our health. ‘‘But you have no bath- 
tubs,’’ they said. ‘‘Why, in the city no one would live 
without a bathtub.’’ Perhaps we had some doubts 
about that, for we had seen a lot of pictures of city 
tenements in which the shining white bathtub did not 
figure, but it did no good to mention them. Hven 
when we explained in detail that in some cases the 
entire profits of the farm for five years would hardly 


310 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


pay the bill for installing a complete water system such 
as they have in the cities, they would not listen. And 
the reporters went back and spread the word abroad 
that we country folks were lacking in health and 
refinement—all because we did not arise and howl in a 
chorus, at their suggestion, for white bathtubs. Then 
there was a Commission to study us and all the welfare 
Societies issued leaflets and things that made us feel 
that we were quite incapable of taking care of our own 
problems. When all that we needed was a little 
practical help and not so much talk. 

But since the automobile has become so common, 
public opinion has veered again, and we are hearing 
a great deal about God’s out-of-doors and the broad 
open spaces where fresh breezes and the kindly fruits 
of the earth render life delightful. And the city 
people love to get away in their ears for the day in the 
woods and fields. But again the country person is not 
moved to enthusiasm. It is God’s out-of-doors, of 
course, and every spiritually minded country person 
feels in it the nearness of God—but it is also, just as 
truly, the devil’s out-of-doors. In fact, the fellow who 
is struggling to raise a crop in spite of potato-bugs, 
tree-borers, cabbage-worms, and forty thousand other 
pests, should be pardoned if he thinks that the devil 1s 
rather the more powerful! And every country person 
knows that human nature is just as prone to sin in the 
eountry as in the city. The forces of evil may look 
different out in the fields, but they are all at work, 
fighting the same old battle. 

Another great source of harm to our country life 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 311 


just now is the complete pessimist. I sometimes think 
he is the most vicious product of our civilization. It is 
true that some farmers complain a good deal—and every 
country person knows that they have a lot to complain 
of—but no farmer that I know of complains absolutely 
wholesale. At his worst, if you pin him down to it, 
he will admit that, though his wheat was a total failure 
and his hogs all died with cholera, he did make a little 
something on his apple crop this year. Or that, if they 
didn’t have money for any new clothes, at least the 
garden did well and there was plenty laid by to eat in 
the coming winter. The only really whole-souled pessi- 
mists on country life I ever met are those who do their 
complaining from an ulterior motive. But they are a 
very numerous tribe and are listened to with all too 
much respect by many of the country people. 

I do not mean to imply, however, that all these 
simon-pure pessimists are rascals. Indeed many of them 
are actuated by the highest human motives. They see, 
or think they see, how the hard lot of the farmers can 
be made easier by governmental help in some direction. 
And they know that the big appropriations necessary 
cannot be secured unless the city people are willing. So 
they undertake, with the best intentions in the world, 
to show how bad life is in the country, so that even the 
city people will agree to the spending of their money. 
They hunt the worst possible conditions to play up to 
the public, leaving the impression that all country life 
is as bad as that. Of course we resent it. Nobody 
likes to have his occupation written up as if he were as 
bad as the worst person in it! 


312 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Some of us get mad and try to talk back to our 
detractors if we can. But sometimes the country man 
who has not thought much about the conditions of his 
life becomes very much depressed by these stories. He 
has not realized before how very hard he had to work. 
All the city people, he reasons, must be doing much 
better than himself. Perhaps he sells out and goes 
to the city. Or if he cannot leave the farm he is 
discouraged and unhappy because he feels sure that 
somebody is not giving him a square deal. In any ease, 
the loss of self-respect and belief in their chosen 
occupation does great harm to many of the very people 
that such propaganda is intended to help—far more 
harm, it seems to me, than can be counteracted by any 
amount of governmental assistance. It is true that 
American country life needs to be put upon a better 
governmental footing. There are many changes in the 
laws toward which those who have been thinking 
about country life have been working for a long time— 
changes to place our rural life upon a basis more nearly 
equal to that of the city life of America. But it ought 
to come about without destroying the morale of the 
country people. 

But the past master extraordinary at bewailing the 
woes of the farmers is the self-seeking politician in 
some country districts. He realizes that the farmers 
and their wives have the votes to elect a candidate if 
they can be persuaded to stand together as a class, and 
he at once proclaims himself as the Moses to lead them 
out of their wilderness. American agriculture is going 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 313 


to ruin, he eries aloud. The hand of every man is 
against the farmer. It is time for the farmer to rise 
and overthrow these oppressors and run things to suit 
himself. Wall street, the bankers, the stores and the 
city wage-earners alike feel the brunt of his oratorical 
bludgeon as the sworn enemies of the farmer class. He 
tells the country people that governmental changes are 
the sure cure for all the ills that ail them. Even 
potato-bugs and the boll-weevil, he seems to say, will be 
amenable to legislation if only the right man is elected 
to legislate against them—and of course he is the right 
man. If he is not elected, all the farm people are 
doomed to destruction. It is a great speech. But the 
farm people generally, though they may applaud him 
at the time, have time to think things over as they go 
about their work, and they are quite likely to remember 
that the impassioned pessimist on country life has 
previously never done anything much to save the nation 
except to hold some little political office and graft from 
the county treasury ! 

For the country people are not easily swayed in 
their deeper convictions—that is the reason they are 
not able to keep up with all the varying popular opinion 
of country life. They know from experience the real 
truth about country life, which lies somewhere betwixt 
and between that ignorant optimism with its rosy spec- 
tacles and the out-and-out pessimism of the time-serving 
politician. Farm life will always have its disadvantages. 
The chief of these is that, except under unusual 
conditions, work on the farm will probably bring in 


314 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


less money than the same amount and quality of work 
in the crowded city. It will be some years, no doubt, 
before the average farm home will have as many 
conveniences and comforts as the average city home, 
and the rural schools may remain somewhat inferior to 
those of the city. It is likely, too, that the country 
woman will continue to have more work and fewer 
social pleasures than her sister in the city. These are 
serious disadvantages, but the wise person often takes 
all these fully into account and still elects to stay upon 
the farm. 

Farming is almost the oldest occupation of the race. 
A love for stirring the soil and planting the seed and 
watching the growing plants and earing for the animals 
has been inbred through so many centuries that it has 
become an instinct. Many men and women are born 
farmers, with this instinct so highly developed that no 
other occupation ever satisfies them in any real way, 
however easy it may be or however much money it may 
bring them. We say they are country-minded, for 
wherever they may live their thoughts are in the country 
among the things that appeal to them. Many a city 
man is unhappy even in a good business because at 
heart he feels that the only task worth while is that of 
making things grow out of doors. He gives what time 
he must to his business but every leisure moment is 
spent on his seed catalogues, his few chickens, and his 
little backyard garden. Sometimes, it is true, this is 
a mere sentimentality, but often it is a real feeling in 
his heart that his daily business is not worth while. 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 315 


Such a man is usually happier on the farm, even 
though he and his family lack many of the comforts of 
the city. His daily work so appeals to his natural tastes 
and instincts that he feels no desire to turn to anything 
else for recreation. He knows that his task is worth 
while because it provides for the fundamental needs of 
the race. This, it seems to me, explains in part why so 
many men who could easily make a much larger income 
in the city stay upon the farm year after year. Their 
reward is that great satisfaction of heart of the man who 
has found his work, and they know that is one 
supremely good thing which money cannot buy. 

But this does not mean that the farmer is, or ought 
to be, contented with the present financial returns of his 
toil. I have been told that the American farmer is 
better off in financial returns and in the comforts of his 
home than the farmer of any other nation in the world. 
Perhaps this is true. But the American farmer is not 
looking at the other nations, he is looking at his own, 
and at the unevenness of rewards between the workman 
in the city and the workman on the farm. And he 
rightly demands that a proportionate share of the good 
things of life be given him for his labor. Literature and 
history give us pictures of contentment upon the farm 
under the worst conditions. The family in Burns’s ‘‘The 
Cotter’s Saturday Night’’ was happy though extremely 
poor. And the American pioneer family often lived in 
a one-room cabin with a dirt floor, and a few boards laid 
across the joists for a loft. They were content because 
the shelter was the best they could provide under the 


316 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


conditions and few of their neighbors had any better. 

But at the present time in America, the farmer who 
lives in a log shelter is not content, nor should he be. 
He sees all about him a higher standard of living and he 
knows that his children are being looked down upon by 
the other children of the community. And he is a very 
stupid person indeed if, when he finds his honest toil 
so unremunerative comparatively, he does not do as so 
many other country folks have been doing lately—go to 
town and get a job. This is the saving grace in Ameri- 
ean country life. The Scotch cotter had little oppor- 
tunity to better himself, but in America social conditions 
are still so fluid that no one need live in the country 
unless he chooses to do so. And this requires that our 
country life must be made sufficiently attractive for the 
required number of persons to be drawn to it to produce 
the food for the nation. | 

The present wave of discontent among the farm 
people is not so much because they are receiving such 
low prices for their products, grievous as that is, as 
because they believe that they have not been receiving a 
just share of the national profits. During the war, the 
rise in prices of farm products brought an opportunity 
to the farm family which was eagerly seized upon. 
‘With the increase in income the family could dress better 
than before, thousands of farm homes were fitted with 
electric light and water systems, and the new automobile 
took the family on long trips and on visits to the city. 
They suddenly realized how primitive had been their 
previous way of life. For instance, the country woman 
began comparing her lot with that of the city woman. 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 317 


She saw the city woman provided at a reasonable price 
and at no trouble to herself with electricity for power, 
light and heat for many household conveniences. She 
saw the great city laundries doing a thousand women’s 
work at one time, and the retail store automobile 
bringing food-stuffs to the door in an advanced stage of 
preparation. She saw the opportunities for education 
which the city woman had in the community centers, 
reading clubs, mothers’ meetings, ete. She saw the elab- 
orately equipped schools and the expert teachers pro- 
vided for the city woman’s children. And naturally she 
came to demand some of these good things for her own 
farm family. They cannot be provided unless the farm- 
er’s income is considerably increased, so the immediate 
aim of the farm people is to secure a greater return for 
their work so that they can live as well in the country as 
the middle-class families live in the modern American 
city. 

Our American country life is now in the process of 
a great change and not even the wisest prophets under- 
take to say whether the conditions of the future will be 
greatly better or greatly worse. On the one hand, in the 
increasing tenantry and small farming, there seems 
to be a movement toward an ignorant peasantry on the 
land such as prevails in some European countries. But 
on the other hand the American farmer in the midst of 
the most trying conditions, is so rapidly adapting him- 
self and increasing the efficiency of his labor and of his 
acres that it seems probable that he will be able to hold 
his own in spite of the untoward conditions. 

At any rate it is probable that the life of to-morrow 


318 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


will be different from that of the past. But from one 
end of the nation to the other, the country women are 
hoping that somehow all that was best in the past will 
be saved and builded into the future. They are think- 
ing of the nation as well as of their families, for 
they feel deeply that no nation can prosper for long 
unless there is a happy and contented people upon 
the land. As Lloyd-George says of England: ‘‘The 
country is much healthier for brain and muscle and 
heart than the towns. It is a thing which, if a man has 
got it into his composition, enables him to bear the worst 
wear and tear of life. He has got the soil of England, 
Seotland and Wales with him, with its cheerful en- 
durance and warmth in every fiber of his nature. Get 
the people back to the land—the resurrection of every- 
thing. You will find the country not a picture of deso- 
lation, but England will be a garden ringing with cheer- 
ful and contented life. I came from an agricultural 
district and spent all my early life there; and I have 
been more convinced since the war than ever before 
that the security of this country depends largely upon 
the development of the rural life.’’ 

It is this permanence and worth-whileness of country 
life which most appeals to the American woman on the 
farm. She does not have to be told by statesman—she 
knows—that the only permanent nation is builded first 
upon the soil. She does not need statistics to tell her 
that those children who are given a happy childhood in 
the wide range of the open country are better prepared 
for the race of life. She knows it instinctively. And 
so she is willing to bear her many burdens and to work 


TRUTH ABOUT COUNTRY LIFE 319 


toward the perpetuation of farm life in order that our 
American people can continue to be as wholesome and 
healthy and happy in mind and body and spirit as they 
have been in the hearty days of the pioneer past. 





APPENDIX 
THE FARM WOMAN’S BOOKSHELF 


Books can be ordered direct from the publishers or through 
a bookseller. Farmers’ Bulletins can be ordered from the 
Division of Publications, United States Department of Ag- 
riculture, Washington, D. C., or from the Congressman from 
your district. 


THE HOME 


“Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium,” 
Jessie H. Bancroft, Macmillan Company, New York City. 
“Fagots for the Fireside,” Lucretia Hall, 
Houghton Mifflin Company, New York City. 
“Home Play; Suggestions for Recreation in the Home and 
Neighborhood.” 40 cents. Playground and Recreation 
Association of America, 315 Fourth Avenue, New York City. 
“Child Training,’ Angelo Patri. 
D. Appleton & Company, New York City. 


THE FARMHOUSE 


“How to Furnish the Small Home,” Sanders, 25 cents. 
“Plan Book of Small Homes,” 35 cents. 
Better Homes in America, 1653 Pennsylvania Ave., 
Washington, D. C. 
Farm Home Conveniences, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 927. 
321 


322 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Electric Light and Power in the Farm Home. 
Agriculture Yearbook, 1919, Separate 799. 
The Farm Kitchen as a Workshop, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 607. 
Water Systems for Farm Homes, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 941. 
Operating a Home Heating Plant, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 
1194. 

Chimneys and Fireplaces, How to Build Them, Farmers’ Bul- 
letin, No. 1230. 
Harvesting and Storing Ice on the Farm, Farmers’ Bulletin, 

No. 1078. 
Sewage and Sewerage of Farm Homes, Farmers’ Bulletin, 
No. 1227. 
Securing a Dry Cellar, 
Agriculture Yearbook, 1919, Separate 824 
Floors and Floor Coverings, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 1219. 
The Well-Planned Kitchen, 
Cireular 189, Dept. of Agriculture. 
One Register Furnaces (Pipeless Furnaces) Farmers’ Bul- 
letin, No. 1174. 
Homemade Fireless Cookers and Their Use, Farmers’ Bulle- 
tin, Now Wh 


THE GROUNDS AND GARDENS 


“Hardy Plants for Cottage Gardens,’ Albee. $2.00. 
Henry Holt & Co., New York City. 
“Art out of Doors,’ Van Rensselaer, $1.75. 
Charles Seribner’s Sons, New York City. 
Permanent Fruit and Vegetable Gardens, Farmers’ Bulletin, 
No. 1242. 
Home Gardening in the South, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 934. 
The Farm Garden in the North, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 937. 
Vegetable Seeds for the Home and Market Garden, Farmers’ 
Bulletin, No. 1390. 


~~ 


APPENDIX 323 


How to Grow an Acre of Potatoes, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 
1190. 

Diseases and Insects of Garden Vegetables, Farmers’ Bulle- 
tin, No. 1371. 

Home Storage of Vegetables, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 879. 

Celery Growing, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 1269. 

Cucumbers, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 254. 

Beans, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 289. 

Onion Culture, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 354. 

Cabbage, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 433. 

Asparagus, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 829. 

Beautifying the Farmstead, Farmers’ Bulletin, No 1087. 

Planning the Farmstead, Farmers’ Bulletin, No. 1132. 

Roses for the Home, Farmers’ Bulletin, No 750. 


THE HOME BUSINESS 


“Hivery-Day Business for Women,” Wilbur. 
Houghton, Mifflin Company, New York City. 
“The Boston Cooking School Cook Book,” Farmer, 
Little, Brown & Company, Boston, Mass. 
“Food, Health and Growth; a Discussion of the Nutrition 
of Children,’ L. Emmett Holt. $1.50. 
Maemillan Company, New York City. 
“Infant Care,’ Children’s Bureau, Department of Labor, 
Bulletin No. 8. 5 cents, Superintendent of Documents, 
Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 
“Week of Menus for Children, Two to Six,” 5 cents. 
American Child Health Association, 
370 Seventh Avenue, New York City. 
“Niet for the School Child,” Health Education Leaflet, No. 2. 
5 cents. 
Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C. 


324 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


“Materials for the Household,” 25 cents, 

Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C. 
“Safety for the Household,” 15 cents, 

Bureau of Standards, Washington, D. C. 

A System of Farm Cost Accounting, Farmers’ Bulletin 572. 
Value of Records to the Farmer, 

Separate from Yearbook, 1917, No. 735. 
Farm Bookkeeping, Farmers’ Bulletin 511. 
Farm Inventories, Farmers’ Bulletin 1182. 
Farm Household Accounts, Farmers’ Bulletin 964. 
Baking in the Home, Farmers’ Bulletin 1136. 
Removal of Common Stains, Farmers’ Bulletin 861. 
School Lunches, Farmers’ Bulletin 712. 
Housecleaning Made Easy, Farmers’ Bulletin 1180. 
Home Laundering, Farmers’ Bulletin 1099. 
Milk and its Uses in the Home, Farmers’ Bulletin 1359. 
Food for Young Children, Farmers’ Bulletin 717. 
Good Proportions in the Diet, Farmers’ Bulletin 1313. 
Honey and its Uses in the Home, Farmers’ Bulletin 653. 
Cheese and its Economical Uses in the Diet, Farmers’ Bulle- 

tin 487, 

Bookkeeping in the Clover Region, Farmers’ Bulletin 1215. 
Beekeeping in the Buckwheat Region, Farmers’ Bulletin 1216. 
Beekeeping in the Tulip Tree Region, Farmers’ Bulletin 1222. 
Strawberries, Preparing for Market, Farmers’ Bulletin 979. 
Preparation of Peaches for Market, Farmers’ Bulletin 1266. 
Feeding Hens for Egg Production, Farmers’ Bulletin 1067. 
Marketing Poultry, Farmers’ Bulletin 1377. 
Marketing Eggs, Farmers’ Bulletin 1378. 


THE WOMAN HERSELF 


“Seerets of Distinctive Dress,” Picken. 
Woman’s Institute, Scranton, Pa. 





APPENDIX 325 


“The Expectant Mother in the House of Health,” 10 cents. 
“The Baby in the House of Health,” 10 cents. 
American Child Health Association, 
370 Seventh Avenue, New York City. 

“The Gracious Hostess,” a book of etiquette. 

Bobbs Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Ind. 
Selection and Care of Clothing, Farmers’ Bulletin No. 1089. 
The Paper Dress Form, 

Department of Agriculture Circular 207. 


THE BOY AND THE GIRL 


“Farm Boys and Girls,” W. A. McKeever, 
| The Macmillan Company, New York City. 
“The American Country Girl,’ Martha Foote Crowe, $1.50 
F. A. Stokes, 443 Fourth Ave., New York City. 
“Radio Simplified,” Kendall and Koehler, $1.00 
John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, Pa. 
“The Complete Radio Book,” Yates and Pacent, $2.00 
The Century Company, New York City. 
“Garments for Girls,” Schmidt, $1.50 
The Century Company, New York City. 
“The Outdoor Handy Book,’ Daniel C. Beard, 
Charles Seribner’s Sons, New York City. 
“Recreation for Girls,” Lina and Adelia Beard. 
Charles Seribner’s Sons, New York City. 
“A Hundred Things a Girl Can Make,” $2.50. 
J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, Pa. 
“The Star People and the Sky Movies,” Gaylord Johnson, $1.50 
The Macmillan Company, New York City. 
“Kveryday Mysteries, Easy Science,” Charles Greeley Abbot, 
$2.00 The Maemillan Company, New York City. 
“Camping,” Horace Kephart, 75 cents, 
The Macmillan Company, New York City. 


326 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


“My Health Book,” for girls, 10 cents. 
American Child Health Association 
370 Seventh Ave., New York City. 
“Height, Weight, Age Tables for Boys and Girls,” 5 cents. 
Bureau of Education, Dept. of Interior, Washington, D. C. 
“Classroom Weight Record, including Height, Weight, Age 
Tables.” Useful for keeping home records, 5 cents. 
Bureau of Education, Dept. of Interior, Washington, D. C. 
“Boy Scouts’ Handbook,” 50 cents. 
Boy Seouts of America, 200 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
“Camp Fire Girls’ Handbook,” 50 cents. 
Camp Fire Girls of America, 31 E. 17th St., New York City. 
“Scouting for Girls,” 75 cents. 
Girl Scouts of America, 189 Lexington Ave., New York City. 


“Bird Guide, Land Birds East of the Rockies,” Chester A. 
Reed, $1.50. 
“Flower Guide, Wild Flowers Hast of the Rockies,’ Reed. 
“Western Bird Guide,” Reed. 
“The Tree Guide,’ Rogers. 
“The Butterfly Guide,’ Holland. 
“Western Flower Guide,’ Saunders. 
Doubleday, Page and Company, Garden City, N. Y. 


Bird Houses and How to Build Them, Farmers’ Bulletin 609. 

Attracting Birds in the Northeastern States, Farmers’ Bul- 
letin 621. / 

Birds Useful to the Farmer, Farmers’ Bulletin 630. 

Birds of the Southeastern United States, Farmers’ Bulletin 
755. 

Attracting Birds in Middle Atlantic States, Farmers’ Bul- 
letin 844, 


APPENDIX 327 


Attracting Birds in East Central States, Farmers’ Bulletin 
912. 

Plants, Collecting for Study, Farmers’ Bulletin 586. 

Insects, Collecting for Study, Farmers’ Bulletin 606. 


THE SCHOOL 


“Country Life and the Country School,’ Mabel Carney, 
Row, Peterson & Co., Chicago, Il. 
“Farm Accounting in Rural Schools,” Cireular Vol. IX, No. 2, 
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 
“A Complete Farm Record, for Use in Teaching Farm <Ac- 
counting in Rural Schools,’ Vol. IX, No. 3, 
Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio. 


THE CHURCH 


“Churches of Distinction in Town and Country,” Edmund de 
S. Brunner, $1. 50 
George H. Doran Company, New York City. 
“A Handbook of the Community Church Movement,” David 
R. Piper, 
The Community Churchman Company, Indianapolis, Ind. 
“The Farmers’ Church,’”’ Warren H. Wilson, 
The Century Company, New York City. 


BOOKS AND LIBRARIES 


Home Reading Courses, 

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Washing- 
ington, D. C. 

Readers living in the following States should apply to the 

Director of Extension in their State University for informa- 

tion and direction, which will be given free of charge: Ari- 

zona, Cclorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, North 


328 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South 
Dakota, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. 


Book Wagons, American Library Association, 
78 East Washington St., Chicago, Il. 
A County Library, 
American Library Association, Chicago, Ill. 
A Shelf of Books for a One-Room School, 
American Library Association, Chicago, Ill. 
Stories for Young Children, Library Leaflet No. 6, 
Department of Interior, Bureau of Education, 
Washington, D. C. 
The Forest Poetic, book of country verse. Postage 5 cents. 
American Tree Association, Washington, D. C. 


THE COMMUNITY 


“The Farmer and His Community,’ Dwight L. Sanderson, 
Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York City. 
“Codperative Marketing,” Herman Steen. 
American Farm Bureau Federation, Chicago, Il. 
“A List of Health Films.” More than 300 titles of films on 
health subjects for rent or sale. 35 cents. 
National Health Council, 370 Seventh Ave., New York City. 
“Roadside Planting,” 
Portland Cement Association. Offices at New York City, 
Atlanta, Ga., Portland, Ore., Kansas City, Mo., ete. 
The Rural Community Fair, 
Agricultural Experiment Station, Madison, Wisc. Bulletin 307. 
Home Economics Exhibits for Community Fairs, Cireular 
No. 247. 
Agricultural College, University of Illinois, Urbana, IIl. 
Lifting the Country Community by its Own Boot Straps, 
Cireular 255. College of Agriculture, Morgantown, W. Va, 


APPENDIX 329 


Status and Results of Boys’ and Girls’ Club Work, Cir- 

eular 192. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. 
Rest Rooms for Women in Marketing Centers, 

Separate from Dept. of Agriculture Yearbook, 1917, No. 726. 
A Successful Rural Codperative Laundry, 

Separate from Dept. of Agriculture Yearbook, 1915, No. 668. 
Farmers’ Telephone Companies, Farmers’ Bulletin 1245. 
Rural Community Buildings in the United States, Farmers’ 

Bulletin No. 825. 

Plans of Rural Community Building, Farmers’ Bulletin 

No. 1173. 

Organization of Community Buildings, Farmers’ Bulletin 1192. 
Bulletin 1192. 

Uses of Rural Community Buildings, Farmers’ Bulletin 
No. 1274. 


SOCIAL LIFE 


“Producing Amateur Entertainments,” Helen Ferris, 
i. P. Dutton & Co., New York City. 
“The Little Country Theater,’ Alfred G. Alvord, $2.50 
The Maemillan Company, New York City. 
“The Grange Master and the Grange Lecturer,” Jennie Buell, 
Harcourt, Brace & Co., New York City. 
“Rural Social Problems,” C. J. Galpin, $2.00 
The Century Co., New York City. 


Publications of Playground and Recreation Association of 
America. 315 Fourth Avenue, New York City. 
“Rural and Small Community Recreation,” 50 cents, 
“What Can We Do? Social Games,” 25 cents. 
“List of Dramas Including Full Evening Plays and One- 
Act Plays,” 10 cents. 


330 THE WOMAN ON THE FARM 


“Graded List of Plays for Girls’ and Women’s Clubs,” 
10 cents. 

“Selected List of Plays and Operettas for Children and 
Young People,” 10 cents. 

“Full Evening Plays suitable for High School Use,” 
10 cents. 

“Inexpensive Costumes for Plays, Festivals and Pageants,” 
25 cents. 

“List of Pageants and Pageant Material,” 15 cents. 
“Kverybody Neighbors thro Song,’ community music, 

10 cents. 

“Christmas Carols,” ten favorite carols, 70 cents per 100. 
“Community Songs,” 80 cents per 100. 
“Community Hymns,” 25 favorites, $1.15 per 100. 
“Games and Play for School Morale,” 25 cents. 


Country Plays by Mary Meek Atkeson, 
Orange Judd Publishing Co., New York: City. 
“The Cross Roads Meeting House,’ three acts, eleven 
characters, 35 cents. 
“The Good Old Days,” country life pageant, 50 to 200 per- 
sons, 35 cents. 
“Don’t!” one act play, six characters, 25 cents. 
“The Will,” one-act play, three characters, 25 cents. 
Dances, Drills and Story Plays, Nina B. Lamkin, 
T. S. Denison Company, 623 Wabash Ave., Chicago, III. 
Plays for the Country Theater, Extension Bulletin 53. 
New York State College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y. 
The Country Theater, Cornell Reading Course for the Farm, 
Lesson 153. 
College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y. 
The Historical Pageant in the Rural Community, Extension 
Bulletin 54. 


APPENDIX 331 


College of Agriculture, Ithaca, N. Y. 
Rural Planning—The Social Aspects, Farmers’ Bulletin 1325. 


POLITICAL AND NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 


“The Woman Voter’s Manual,’ Forman and Shuler, $1.00 
The Century Co., New York City. 
“Parliamentary Law,” Nanette B. Paul, $1.25. 
The Century Co., New York City. 
“The American Government,” $1.00. 
Frederick J. Haskin, 1220 N. Capitol St., Washington, D. C. 
“David Lubin, A Study in Practical Idealism,’ Agresti. 
Little, Brown & Co., Boston, Mass. 


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